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Since 1962, the state of Texas stopped growing white and pink varieties to focus solely on ruby-red production.Īside from eating out of hand (perhaps sprinkled with a bit of sugar or drizzled with honey), both the pummelo and grapefruit pair beautifully with bitter greens - arugula, watercress, frisée and escarole. The mutant offspring now account for about 75 percent of all grapefruit grown in Texas.” The resulting ruby-red mutations also have registered trademarks. “Its flesh eventually faded to pink, however, and scientists fired radiation to produce mutants of deeper color - Star Ruby, released in 1971, and Rio Red, released in 1985. “In 1929, farmers stumbled on the Ruby Red grapefruit, a natural mutant,” per a 2007 New York Times article. Grapefruit first came to Texas at the end of the 19th century, but not until 1929 did things start to get interesting. The leading states are Arizona, California, Florida and Texas, where red grapefruit has a colorful story. You will have a better chance of finding a pummelo in an Asian grocery or specialty market than in a conventional supermarket.Īs for grapefruit, the US is the number one producer, followed by China, South Africa and Mexico. It is commercially grown in the United States but limited to subtropical spots like Florida and California. The pummelo thrives in China, Thailand, Fiji, Malaysia and the Caribbean.

The peak for pummelo is similar, with a somewhat earlier arrival, around late November.

<All Real Food Encyclopedia EntriesĪlthough grapefruit is sold year-round in supermarkets, the peak season runs from December until March. But to this day, the ‘pummelo’ and the ‘grapefruit’ are both known as ‘pomelos,’ depending on who you’re talking to. The name irked many American commercial growers who tried in the 1940s to market it as a “pomelo.” As you can imagine, all kinds of confusion ensued, ensuring ‘grapefruit’ history. In the early 1800s, the shaddock (and possibly even the “shattuck”) traveled from the West Indies to Florida, where it became known as the ‘grapefruit’ for its grape-like clusters on trees. The similar subtropical conditions made the pummelo feel at home, where they were bred with sweet orange, resulting in the edible offspring that we’ve come to know as the grapefruit.ĭubbed the “shaddock” (after the captain), the new fruit made its way to Jamaica, where in 1737 it was officially documented in “The Flora of Jamaica” as botanically different from the pummelo, earning the classification Citrus paradisi. You’ll encounter a spongy and easily removed pith which gives way to enormous seedless segments in the shade of coral pink or green grapes, both delicately sweet and juicy.īy the late 17th century, the pummelo traveled across the world, from Fiji to Barbados, with a certain sea captain named Shaddock (or Chaddock).

Peel away their easily maneuvered thick, yellow-green rind and you’ll be rewarded with a perfume that should be bottled. The largest of all the citrus fruits, pummelos are shaped like a globe or sometimes like a pear, with a somewhat flattened end. First came the pummelo, a native of Malaysia and other parts of southeast Asia, as well as the Pacific island of Fiji.