Orange You Glad? Louisiana Citrus Adds Tang

By: The Local Palate

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Not to compare apples to oranges, but curiously there’s no popular adage citing the benefits to eating an orange a day. Well, once you get a load of Louisiana’s citrus-y bounty, you might be implementing a fruity new rule regarding your daily intake. We know what you’re thinking—Louisiana oranges? With such disproportionate air time allocated to oranges from the Sunshine State, you might have thought that Florida has the monopoly on vitamin C. But down in the bayou, the climate is ideal for growing citrus—temperatures are chilly enough to cultivate sweetness, but rarely do they dip too low (sustained temperatures below twenty-five degrees will kill the fruit). Perhaps you’ve heard of the satsuma, the smaller, seedless, less sweet cousin of the orange, but naval and sweet varieties also flourish. At Saint Street Inn in Lafayette [now closed], chef Ashley Roussel is using local fruit to flavor a fresh-as-can-be crudo, add tang to her Louisiana citrus slaw, and incorporate some zing into a revelatory ice cream. Meanwhile, bartender Nathan Stubbs mixes it up by infusing cocktails with a welcome shot of vitamin C. Maybe there is no adage, but we’re on board for a daily dose.