Breakfast for Snack

As academics in a Food & Culture class, everyone (including our professor) took the food for the last day of class seriously. We each made our own suggestion, voted on them, and then would continuously discuss the menu. For a month. The verdict happened to be breakfast for snack. There were pop tarts, cinnamon rolls, rugelah, homemade pumpkin bread, homemade gingerbread cupcakes, bagels with cream cheese, orange juice, chips and guacamole, Nutella and bread, and sliced pineapple, mango, strawberries, and kumquat.

Have you heard of that last word? I certainly had not before yesterday. Kumquats look like this:

The flavor is very tangy, quite like a grapefruit. Come to think of it, kumquats are like very little grapefruits with a few differences. First of all, you eat the whole thing. That means the outer peel as well! Second, although the inside is very bitter, the peel is relatively sweet. Third, they are not found everywhere. They started growing in China, then moved through most of the world up to Florida, Louisiana, and California. However, they are still difficult to find. I tried looking for them at Fresh Grocer and, to my dismay, they were nowhere to be found.

So next time you are at a more diverse grocery store browse around the fruit section. You might find a surprise!