General Chat

any more nostalgia?

Why are tangerines so hard to find?
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
The Magazine answers...


For most of the nation, tangerines are associated with a Christmas stocking.

The orange citrus fruit was traditionally found nestled there with no more than some nuts and a few chocolate coins - if you were lucky - so their discovery was sometimes tinged with disappointment.

But the frustration these days is when asking for tangerines while shopping in one of the major supermarkets. The chances are that the reply will be they are not stocked. So why have they disappeared?

It all comes down to fashion and names, according to fruit buyers for the big supermarkets. Tangerine is the old name for mandarin, which is a generic term for the citrus fruit of several trees. The name started to be phased out in the 1960s, in favour of its more exotic-sounding alternative.

mandarin orange v. tangerine v. clementine v. satsuma
Friday, December 11, 2009

Mandarin oranges are oblate, loose-skinned, easily eaten sweet or tart citrus fruits that can range from egg to grapefruit size. Mandarins were brought to Europe from China in 1805, and their name derives from the bright orange color of the robes worn by Chinese officials at the time. There are many varieties of mandarin oranges, including tangerines, clementines, and satsumas.

Tangerines have a deep red-orange exterior, and are named after Tangier, Morocco, the port through which they first reached the West.

A clementine is a seedless hybrid of a tangerine and a bitter orange, cultivated in Spain and North Africa. Although they were named for Father Clément Rodier, an Algerian monk, clementines were probably developed in Asia.

The satsuma is a Japanese variety, with a very easily peeled skin. Most canned mandarin oranges are satsumas.

Lavender - I too recall those orange and lemon slices in a round box :-D

I had some individually wrapped tangerines from my local greengrocer at the weekend.

The chocolates I was thinking of were Neopolitans :-D :-D

Also we used to make the place cards to sit at the table,and decide where everyone was sitting, the 3 of us always tried to avoid sitting by Mum as she would keep saying eat abit more,and have more greens :-0 :-D ;-) Nan always had to have an exit so she could have her sneaky fags in the garden :-D

I tried to get some of those tiny crackers to go on the tree one year.

Couldn't find any as little as I remembered.

There was always a red jelly in the centre of the display of orange and lemon slices.

Wow Carol busy busy! :-)

What about the lemon and orange jelly fruit slices (are those the Just Jellies?)

They were covered in sugar, very sweet and sickly, arranged in a circle in a cardboard box.

Been busy, got my old Singer sewing machine out to make things for a local nursing home to sell at their craft groups Christmas fair. Aprons, shopping bags, doorstops, drought excluder's, needle cases,pin cushions, Teddy Bears, stockings & little Christmas bags to hang on trees.

Then people saw them & asked me to make. Dizzy was the last, she now has 2 owl doorstops.

I have just got to finish a camouflage back sack for my Grandson & a pretty one for my Granddaughter, then the machine, boxes of material, buttons, ribbons & sand are going away until the New Year.

I don't remember any of the things mentioned above, but we always had plenty of coal for the fire on Christmas Day ;-)

Carol, good o see yu poting. <3

I count myself lucky to have been part of a large happy family, money was tight but our parents made Christmas a good time for us.
My father worked for Guinness Hop Farms who also owned Callard and Bowsers. Each Christmas all families working for them received a box containing 6 tins of sweets & a box of nougat. The tins were sealed with a thick layer of foil, to cut through this you had to move a slide on the top of the outer lid.
I shared a bedroom with my 3 sisters, a double bed & 2 singles.
Stocking contents were from Father Christmas, so could be looked at as soon as one of us woke, shook the other 3 & we had all settled ourselves under the eiderdown on the double bed
In our stockings (Dad’s new socks, given to him early so that Mum could thread a bit of wool through the tops to allow us to hang them up), we would always have tangerine (which we ate whilst looking at the other contents), nuts (which got put into a bowl of them on the sideboard), coloured pencils, a colouring book & a sugar mouse. I now know that my paternal Grandmother would supply other little things to be added to them. I remember shells that when placed in water opened allowing a paper flower to ‘grow’ out of them, warbling water whistles shaped like birds, wobbly animals that collapsed when you pushed the bottom, magic fish that curled when placed on your flat hand & sets of ‘jacks’, marbles & playing cards. .
All other presents were under the tree in the front sitting room, this room was seldom used other than Christmas or when we had visitors. Dad would light the fire in there on Christmas Eve & bank it up overnight (with a Yule log), so that it was warm for Christmas Day. These presents had to stay there until after we were all washed, dressed & breakfasted (boiled eggs with toast soldiers).

my Dad made me a lovely wooden desk with inkwells and I asked for purple and green ink the next Christmas - spent the whole Christmas period writing in purple and green ink :-D :-D

I'm so glad I started this thread - so many happy memories on here - thanks everyone :-D

Oh yes MTG me I had both

Ok Girls, own up, who had a Toy Post Office or a Toy Sweet shop?

Post office, lots of paper and envelops with stamps, a rubber stamp and a little set of scales.

Sweet shop, lots of small glass sweet bottles, with scales again.

I used to turn a chair around, with the ladder facing me sis, and 'serve' her through the bars! :-) :-) :-) :-)

AnninGlos such memories. First house I lived in was an old cottage...all very basic facilities. My dad was forward thinking at the time and mum had an electric cooker (archaic by today's standards) at a time when the neighbours were still using the solid fuel black range ...never saw mum attempt to cook anything on it even though it was still in our kitchen.

No bathroom, outside loo....water supply was one cold water tap above the kitchen sink. Dad had a brilliant idea and bought mum a sadia water heater for Christmas in order (he thought) to make life easier for her. This was an electrical appliance fitted above the sink. Well it did make life easier for her, but for years and years she never let us forget that it was the worst present ever!!

Christmas in our house was special, we always had lots of decorations up all over the house, my parents loved Christmas. Sometimes relatives would stay, sometimes we would be on our own. It wasn’t until after we were married that my other half and I actually spent Christmas Day together as he usually went home on leave. He would come back on Boxing Day. We would always have a large real tree in the front room and the fire would be lit in there on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. One year Dad arrived home with an enormous tree, having left it a bit late to buy one. Much hilarity as it was so tall that he had to cut the top off to get it into the front room. Christmas Eve, my sister and I would hang our pillowcases up on the end of our bed and, of course, we could never get to sleep. As we lay there we could hear the rustle of paper as Mum and Dad wrapped presents and the rattling of pans etc in the kitchen. Dad always iced the cake that Mum had made and that was done on Christmas Eve, Mum would be baking mince pies (no freezers to keep things in then). Also the vegetables would all be prepared that evening for the Christmas lunch.

When we woke the following morning it was to find bulging pillowcases (I can feel the exciting shapes now) and also a stocking each. We would open the presents in our pillow cases (from friends and relatives) in bed and our stockings then, when we got up, our main presents would be in the kitchen on or by the table. These would be opened after we had eaten breakfast. In the evening there would be more presents on the tree.
On Boxing Day we would have a family get together when as many relatives as could make it would come over in the afternoon and Mum and Dad would put on a special Tea. Mum loved to decorate the table with crepe paper and candles, which sounds ordinary now but was not done much in those days. She would make a huge trifle and we would have two cakes, the fruit Christmas cake which only Dad and I liked, and a walnut cake iced and decorated which Mum, my sister and I preferred to the fruit cake. There would be a ham salad and bread to start and trifle to follow. After tea we would play games like blind man’s buff and pass the balloon. This was probably what put me off party games for life, the embarrassment of adults playing them finding it hilarious, and all without any alcohol.

My Dad was not very good at buying Christmas presents for Mum and was often ‘in trouble’ Mum was a person who could never hide her feelings. One year on the Christmas tree he bought her a hot water bottle. She was not amused!!!

:-D :-D

The next post is an excerpt from my life history. Some of you may have seen it when I put it on here some years back but others won't have seen it. It describes Christmas in our house (or part of it I didn't want to make it too long. :-D