Italian Mandarin and Tangerine: Varieties, Protected Origins and Kitchen Uses / Mandarino Italiano: Varietà, Origini Protette e Usi in Cucina
In southern Italy the mandarin is the citrus of winter. It arrives on the table after the lemons of summer and before the late blood oranges, and for generations it has been the fruit of the Christmas table, of the school bag, of the plate left on the kitchen counter for anyone who passes. In Sicily and Calabria the smell of mandarin peel broken by hand in a cold room is one of the most precise memories of the season, sharper than any photograph.
The landscape of the mandarin is the landscape of the southern citrus garden: the terraces of the Conca d'Oro behind Palermo, the plain of Sibari on the Ionian coast of Calabria, the red soils around the Gulf of Taranto, the slopes of eastern Sicily between Etna and the sea. These are places of low walls, irrigation channels and dark, glossy trees, where the fruit hangs among leaves long after the oranges have been picked.
There is no single taste of the mandarin. An Avana from Palermo full of seeds, perfumed and slightly bitter at the end, has little in common with a seedless Calabrian clementine, sweet and easy, or with a Tardivo di Ciaculli picked in March, when its sugar and acidity have had a whole winter to settle. In the United States the same fruits are sold under the words mandarin, tangerine and clementine, often without any indication of what is really in the box.
A serious guide must therefore separate botany from marketing, name the zones and the denominations that really exist, and say clearly what is not protected. It must explain why a mandarin can be extraordinary or ordinary, how to recognize the difference at the market, how to keep it, and how Italian cooks use every part of it, from the juice to the peel to the oil in the skin.
What It Is
Botanically, the mandarin is Citrus reticulata, one of the original citrus species from which most cultivated citrus descend. It is native to southern China and the neighboring regions of Southeast Asia. The sweet orange, the clementine and many modern varieties carry mandarin in their genes. The Mediterranean mandarin, the one that shaped Italian taste, was described as a separate species, Citrus deliciosa, by the Neapolitan botanist Michele Tenore in 1840, from trees grown in the Botanical Garden of Naples. Most botanists today group it within the mandarins, but the old name survives because it describes something real: a fruit with a stronger, more resinous perfume than the Asian types.
The word tangerine is a commercial word, not a botanical one. It comes from Tangier, in Morocco. In nineteenth-century Florida an early mandarin was introduced from that port and sold as the "tangierine," and the name was later shortened. The best-known American variety, the Dancy, descends from that line and was the classic Christmas tangerine of the United States for decades. In the American market today, tangerine usually means a mandarin with a deep orange, often reddish skin and a more intense, tart flavor, while mandarin is the broad family name and clementine is a specific type. In Italy the vocabulary is different: mandarino means the true mandarin, above all the old Avana type, and clementina means the clementine. There is no Italian word that corresponds exactly to the American tangerine.
The clementine is a mandarin hybrid. It appeared at the end of the nineteenth century in the garden of an orphanage at Misserghin, near Oran in Algeria, where Brother Clément, born Vital Rodier, looked after the nursery. The agronomist Louis Trabut described it and named it after him in 1902. Genomic studies have shown that the clementine comes from a cross between the sweet orange and the Mediterranean willowleaf mandarin, which explains why it unites the easy peel of the mandarin with something of the orange's structure.
A good mandarin is recognized first by its perfume. The peel should smell of fresh citrus oil, with green, floral and slightly resinous notes; the flesh should be juicy and balanced, with clear sweetness supported by acidity, and a finish that recalls the peel. The best Italian mandarins have a faint pleasant bitterness at the end, which keeps the sugar from becoming flat.
The defects are equally clear. A puffy fruit, with a loose skin that moves away from the segments when pressed, has usually been left too long on the tree or in storage, and the juice is thinner. Granulation, when the juice vesicles become dry and grainy, makes the segments woody. An overripe or old fruit can taste fermented or of stale oil, and a fruit picked too early is sharp and empty. Seeds are not a defect in the old Italian varieties, but they are part of the price paid for their perfume.
Origin and Protected Denominations
The mandarin reached Europe in the early nineteenth century and found its true home in the warm, irrigated gardens of the south of Italy. In Sicily and Calabria it became, together with lemons and oranges, one of the crops of the great citrus economy that also gave Italy its essential oil industry. Italy has several protected citrus denominations: in Sicily alone the Arancia Rossa di Sicilia IGP, the Arancia di Ribera DOP, the Limone di Siracusa IGP, the Limone Interdonato Messina IGP and the Limone dell'Etna IGP. It is important to say clearly that there is no Italian DOP or IGP for the mandarin itself. The protected small citrus of Italy are two clementines, and the most celebrated Italian mandarin is protected not by European law but by a Slow Food Presidium and a producers' consortium.
Mandarino Tardivo di Ciaculli (Slow Food Presidium, Palermo)
The Tardivo di Ciaculli is a late mandarin from the eastern edge of Palermo, in the Conca d'Oro, the "golden shell" of citrus gardens that once surrounded the city between the mountains and the sea. It is grown around the villages of Ciaculli and Croceverde Giardina. It derives from the Avana, the common Sicilian mandarin, as a spontaneous variation selected by local growers in the twentieth century. Its decisive quality is time: it ripens from January to March, when the other mandarins are finished, and the old growers called it marzuddu, the March fruit, as opposed to the early primintivu.
The fruit is medium in size, with a thin, bright orange skin that is very rich in perfume, few seeds and a high sugar content balanced by a fine acidity. Because it stays on the tree through the winter, it reaches the market when citrus of quality is rare. The growers formed the Consorzio del Tardivo di Ciaculli in 1999, and the mandarin became a Slow Food Presidium, with the goal of saving both the variety and the last citrus gardens of the Conca d'Oro, most of which disappeared under the urban expansion of Palermo in the second half of the twentieth century. The Tardivo is eaten fresh, pressed for juice, and used by the consortium and by Palermo pastry makers for marmalade, candied fruit and liqueur.
Clementine di Calabria IGP
The Clementine di Calabria became a protected geographical indication with European Regulation (EC) No 2325/97, published in November 1997. The denomination is reserved for seedless fruit of specific clementine varieties: SRA 63, Spinoso, Fedele, Comune, Tardivo, Hernandina, Marisol and Nules. The production zone includes 58 municipalities across the five provinces of Calabria, and the heart of the denomination is the plain of Sibari, in the province of Cosenza, where the protection consortium has its seat in Corigliano-Rossano.
Calabria is the region of the clementine in Italy. The combination of mild winters, light alluvial soils and the difference between day and night temperatures near the Ionian Sea gives fruit with a bright skin, a fine, tender flesh and a sweet, clean taste. The season moves from the early varieties in October to the late ones in winter. In Calabrian homes the clementine is eaten fresh, pressed, candied and made into marmalade, and its peel is dried to perfume sweets and liqueurs.
Clementine del Golfo di Taranto IGP
The Clementine del Golfo di Taranto was registered as a protected geographical indication with Commission Regulation (EC) No 1665/2003 of September 22, 2003. The zone covers seven municipalities in the province of Taranto, in Apulia: Palagiano, Massafra, Ginosa, Castellaneta, Palagianello, Taranto and Statte. These are the red soils and the wide coastal plain of the Ionian arc, protected from the cold winds by the hills of the Murgia and warmed by the sea.
The Taranto clementine is known for its compact, intensely colored fruit and for a lively balance between sugar and acidity. In the local kitchen the fruit is eaten fresh, used in jams and in sweets, and its peel perfumes the almond pastries of Apulia.
What Is Not Protected
The Avana mandarin of Sicily and Calabria, the most important Italian mandarin variety, has no protected denomination of its own. The names "mandarino di Sicilia" or "mandarino siciliano" on a label indicate origin but no certified rules of production. The same is true for the green mandarins harvested for essential oil. In other countries there are protected mandarins, such as the Mandarini Chiou of the Greek island of Chios, but in Italy the European system protects only the two clementines named above.
The Varieties That Shape the Italian Mandarin
Avana is the classic Italian mandarin, the one older Italians simply call mandarino. It accounts for roughly 72 percent of Italian mandarin production, according to the Chamber of Commerce of Reggio Calabria. The fruit is flattened, with a thin, loose skin, many seeds and an intense, aromatic perfume that is the very smell of the Italian mandarin. Its season falls in the heart of winter, before the late varieties. It is the variety of the old Sicilian gardens and the reference for granita, liqueur and candied peel.
The Tardivo di Ciaculli is the late form of the Avana described above. In the glass and on the plate it has the same perfume with more sugar and a longer season, which makes it the most valued mandarin of Sicily.
The Clementine Comune is the original clementine type, the one planted in Calabria in the twentieth century and still the base of the denomination. Its fruit is seedless when grown away from other varieties, sweet and fine-grained. Around it a whole series of clementine selections spread the season: early types such as Spinoso, SRA 63 and Marisol, and late types such as Hernandina and the selections called Tardivo.
Modern mandarin hybrids have entered Mediterranean orchards in recent decades, often under license. Tango, for example, is a seedless selection of the W. Murcott mandarin obtained by irradiating buds at the University of California, Riverside, and released to growers in 2006. These varieties were created to answer the request of the international market for fruit that is seedless, easy to peel and available late in the season. They are excellent to eat out of hand, but they rarely have the depth of perfume of the old Avana, which is the reason why chefs and pastry makers in Sicily still look for the traditional fruit.
Production and Quality
Italy is one of the main producers of small citrus in Europe. In recent years the clementine has become by far the dominant small citrus in the country: according to ISMEA data reported by the trade press, Italy grows small citrus on about 36,000 hectares (89,000 acres), of which close to 27,000 hectares (67,000 acres) are clementines, and clementines account for about four-fifths of the harvest. The true mandarin, once the center of the Sicilian citrus economy, now represents a much smaller share.
Quality begins in the grove. The mandarin needs mild winters, regular water and good drainage; its perfume and its balance develop in the cool nights of late autumn, when the difference between day and night temperatures colors the skin and fixes the acidity. Harvest is done by hand, cutting the stem with clippers rather than pulling the fruit, because a torn skin lets in mold. A mandarin does not ripen further after picking: what is harvested is what the guest will taste.
After harvest the fruit is washed, sometimes waxed and treated against mold, and graded by size and color. Untreated fruit, often labeled in Italy "buccia edibile" or "non trattato dopo la raccolta," is essential for any recipe that uses the peel. The leaves left on the stem, typical of the best Sicilian and Calabrian fruit sold in Italy, are a sign of fresh harvest, because they wilt within a few days.
The peel has a second economy. Southern Italy, and above all the area around Reggio Calabria and eastern Sicily, has a long tradition of citrus essential oils obtained by cold-pressing the peel. Mandarin oil is produced in several styles: green mandarin oil from unripe fruit picked early in autumn, with a sharper, more floral perfume, and yellow and red oils from riper fruit, sweeter and rounder. These oils are used in perfumery, in confectionery and in the liqueur industry.
Citrus Tristeza, Imports and the Future of the Italian Mandarin
The great threat to Italian citrus in this century has been the Citrus tristeza virus. It is spread by aphids and by infected plant material, and it is especially destructive for trees grafted on sour orange, the traditional rootstock of Sicilian and Calabrian groves. The first outbreaks in Sicily were identified in 2002, with the first large outbreak in the province of Catania. A study published in 2013 analyzed 67,922 citrus trees sampled in Sicily between 2002 and 2009 and found that about half were infected. The response has been the progressive replanting of groves on tolerant rootstocks, a slow and costly process that has accelerated the replacement of old varieties with new ones.
The second pressure is the market. Large retail buyers want seedless fruit, a uniform size, and a long season. The Avana, with its seeds and its short season, has lost ground to clementines and to new licensed hybrids, and Italian growers compete with large imports from Spain, the leading clementine producer in Europe, and from the southern hemisphere in the summer months. In the Conca d'Oro, urban expansion has done the rest, reducing the historic citrus belt of Palermo to fragments such as the gardens of Ciaculli.
Climate is the third variable. Warmer autumns delay the coloring of the skin and can advance or compress the harvest, as the growers of Ciaculli have observed, while droughts make irrigation, always the foundation of the southern citrus garden, more difficult and more expensive.
The future of the Italian mandarin depends on recognizing that the old varieties are not a defect of the past but a resource. The Presidium of Ciaculli, the two clementine IGPs and the demand of pastry makers, bartenders and chefs for the perfume of the true mandarin show that there is a market for quality. For the cook, supporting that market is simple: buy fruit with a declared origin and variety, and pay for the perfume.
How to Choose and Buy
Choose a mandarin with the hand before the eye. A good fruit feels heavy for its size, which means juice, and its skin is firm and close to the segments, with only slight give. Avoid fruit that feels hollow or puffy, with a skin that sinks under the finger, and fruit with soft spots, wrinkles, or mold at the stem.
Smell it. A fresh mandarin perfumes the hand as soon as the skin is scratched with a fingernail. No perfume usually means old fruit, or a variety bred for appearance rather than aroma. Color is less reliable: some excellent mandarins harvested early still have green patches, and some fruit is degreened after harvest to look ripe.
Read the label. In the United States look for the variety and the country of origin; Italian mandarins and clementines are exported in limited quantities, so a fruit labeled Italian, and better still Clementine di Calabria IGP or Clementine del Golfo di Taranto IGP with the official logo, is a sign of a chosen product. For the peel, buy organic or untreated fruit. Leaves attached to the stem indicate a recent harvest when they are fresh and green.
Buy in season. In the Northern Hemisphere the Italian mandarin season runs from about October, with the first clementines, to March, with the Tardivo di Ciaculli. Mandarins sold in summer come from the southern hemisphere and have traveled for weeks.
How to Taste It
Taste a mandarin at room temperature, never straight from the refrigerator, because cold hides the perfume. Begin with the peel: break it with the fingers and smell the oil that sprays from the glands. In a great fruit it is fresh, green and floral, with a resinous depth.
Then taste a single segment. Note the texture of the membrane, which should be thin and tender, and the juice, which should fill the mouth. Look for balance: sweetness first, then a clear acidity, then the return of the peel perfume and, in the Avana and Tardivo di Ciaculli, a delicate bitterness at the end. A fruit that is only sweet is simple; a fruit that is only sour is unripe.
How to Store It
Mandarins keep for a few days at cool room temperature, in a basket where air circulates, away from the sun and from heat sources. For longer storage, keep them in the refrigerator, in the crisper drawer at about 40 to 45°F (4 to 7°C), where they keep for one to two weeks. Do not seal them in plastic, because condensation encourages mold, and remove any damaged fruit at once, since mold spreads quickly from one fruit to the next.
Juice should be used within a few hours, because its perfume fades and its flavor turns flat. Freshly grated zest can be frozen in a small airtight container for about a month. Peel for liqueur or for candying should be taken from fresh fruit on the day of use. Candied peel keeps for months in a cool, dry place, and mandarin marmalade, properly sealed, keeps for a year.
How to Cook and Use It
In Sicily and Calabria the mandarin is used whole. Its juice makes granita, one of the classic flavors of the Calabrian and Sicilian granita tradition, together with lemon, blood orange and mulberry. The juice is pressed and strained, sweetened with a light syrup, and frozen while being stirred or scraped, so that the crystals stay fine. The same juice, thickened with starch and set, makes a gelo, the Sicilian spoon dessert that is usually made with lemon or watermelon.
The peel is the soul of mandarin liqueurs. Mandarinetto, the mandarin liqueur of Sicilian tradition, is made by steeping the zest without the white pith in neutral spirit, then adding syrup; industrial versions such as Mandarinetto Isolabella brought the style to bars across Italy. At home the liqueur is made in the same way as limoncello, but it needs less steeping time, because mandarin oil is more delicate and turns bitter if the peel stays too long in alcohol.
Candied mandarin belongs to the great Sicilian pastry. The traditional decoration of the cassata siciliana, as it took shape in Palermo in the late nineteenth century, uses candied fruit glazed in syrup, among them mandarins, oranges, citron, pears, figs and cherries, around the green almond paste and the white icing. Candied mandarin peel and small whole candied mandarins are also used in Christmas sweets, and mandarin is now one of the flavors of artisan panettone made by Italian bakers who use candied southern citrus in place of the classic orange.
In savory cooking the mandarin is used with restraint. A few drops of juice and a little zest season raw fish, scallops and red prawns; mandarin segments join fennel and black olives in winter salads, in the family of the Sicilian orange salad; the reduced juice glazes duck and pork in place of orange. The zest perfumes ricotta for cannoli and cassata, almond cookies and shortcrust. The essential rule is to add zest and juice at the end of cooking, because heat destroys their perfume within minutes.
Pairings
The mandarin pairs with the ingredients of the southern Italian winter: almonds and pistachios, sheep's milk ricotta, honey, fennel, black olives, red onion, extra virgin olive oil, dark chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla. With fish it suits raw and lightly cooked preparations, such as red prawns, scallops, sea bass crudo and swordfish carpaccio. With cheese it accompanies fresh ricotta and young pecorino better than aged cheeses, whose salt and fat overwhelm its perfume.
In wine, the sweetness of a mandarin dessert needs a wine at least as sweet, and its acidity needs freshness. The natural partners are the sweet wines of Sicily and southern Italy, whose notes of dried apricot, honey and candied citrus echo the fruit.
Passito di Pantelleria DOC: made from sun-dried Zibibbo grapes on the island of Pantelleria, with apricot, honey and candied orange. It is the classic match for cassata, candied mandarin and almond pastries. Serve at about 54°F (12°C).
Malvasia delle Lipari DOC: the sweet Malvasia of the Aeolian Islands, delicate, with notes of dried fig, apricot and citrus peel. It suits mandarin semifreddo and ricotta desserts. Serve at about 54°F (12°C).
Moscato di Siracusa DOC: a historic sweet Moscato from the southeast of Sicily, golden and aromatic. Its orange blossom and honey notes speak directly to the perfume of the Avana. Serve at about 50°F (10°C).
Moscato d'Asti DOCG: light, gently sparkling and low in alcohol. Its freshness lightens mandarin sorbet, granita and fruit desserts. Serve at about 43°F (6°C).
Etna Bianco DOC: a dry white from Carricante grown on the volcano, with citrus, salinity and high acidity. It is the choice for raw fish and salads dressed with mandarin. Serve at about 50°F (10°C).
Sicilia DOC Grillo: a dry Sicilian white with citrus and herbal notes and a fuller body. It suits fennel and mandarin salads and grilled swordfish. Serve at about 50°F (10°C).
Related Recipes
These recipes on ZAFFERANO & CO. show the mandarin and its family of southern citrus at work, from the freezer to the pastry shop to the bar.
Sorbetto al Mandarino (Italian Mandarin Sorbet): the purest test of the fruit, juice and syrup only.
Semifreddo al Mandarino (Italian Mandarin Semifreddo): mandarin zest and juice carried by cream and meringue.
Granita al Limone Siciliana (Sicilian Lemon Granita): the classic granita method, to be applied to mandarin juice.
Cassata Siciliana Tradizionale (Traditional Sicilian Cassata): the great Palermo cake decorated with candied fruit, mandarin among them.
Insalata di Arance alla Siciliana (Sicilian Orange Salad): the model for winter citrus salads with fennel and olives.
Mandarinetto Siciliano (Homemade Italian Mandarin Liqueur): the peel steeped in spirit, the Sicilian way.
Spritz al Mandarino: mandarin in Italian mixology, for the aperitivo.
Negroni al Mandarino: the bitter classic softened by mandarin perfume.
The Measure of a Great Mandarin
A great mandarin is measured first by its perfume. The moment the skin breaks, it should fill the room with fresh, green, floral oil. Without that perfume there is sweetness, but there is no mandarin.
It is measured then by balance. Sugar alone is easy to obtain with modern varieties; what makes the Avana and the Tardivo di Ciaculli unique is the tension between sweetness, acidity and the light bitterness of the peel, which gives length and makes the fruit precious in the kitchen, where it must hold its character against cream, sugar and alcohol.
It is measured by origin. The Conca d'Oro of Palermo, the plain of Sibari, the Gulf of Taranto are not marketing names: they are soils, climates and generations of growers. A fruit with a declared variety and zone, and where it exists a protected denomination or a Presidium, tells the buyer what is in the box and rewards those who keep the old gardens alive.
Finally, it is measured by use. A great mandarin is never wasted: the juice for granita, the zest for ricotta and liqueur, the peel for candying, the oil for perfume. Southern Italian cooks learned long ago that every part of the fruit has a purpose. Treating the mandarin with that respect is the most Italian way to understand it.
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