the.com/kumquat
the citrus that flips the script — sweet skin, sour guts, eaten whole and unpeeled.
means A small, oval citrus fruit eaten whole, with a sweet edible rind and tart flesh.
from From Cantonese 'kam kwat' (金橘), literally 'golden orange' — 'kam' meaning gold, 'kwat' a kind of citrus. The name traveled out of southern China and into English in the mid-19th century, carrying its little golden boast intact.
- name origin
- Cantonese for golden orange
- eat backwards
- peel is sweetest, flesh is tartest
- own genus
- booted from citrus into Fortunella
- cold tough
- survives frost that kills oranges
- whole bite
- no peeling, just pop it in
for instance
nagami kumquat — most common cultivar grown commercially worldwide, oval-shaped with thin sweet skin
meiwa kumquat — japanese variety prized for exceptionally sweet flesh, rounder shape than nagami
marumi kumquat — small round chinese variety with tart flavor, historically grown in southeast asia