Grapefruit

I did not realize that it is possible to eat a grapefruit like an orange until I was 26 years
old.

I first saw this at art school when a fellow student sat, relaxing outdoors eating a grapefruit
slice by slice and I was astounded! I walked over to her wide-eyed and asked “Do you always
eat your grapefruit that way? Like an orange?” and she responded as one would expect a
person would at an enthusiastic near-stranger asking about so trivial a topic.

I was taught by my swiss-trained mother that grapefruits are to be eaten cut in half with
a little bit of sugar on top and possibly broiled. To eat a grapefruit this way is no small matter.
There are a number of instruments involved including a grapefruit spoon and a sectioning
blade. (This is real). These instruments or specialized utensils are built especially for the

purpose of cutting away the rind manually as one spoons the inner fruit out piece by piece in a
painstaking manner. For this purpose, the grapefruit spoon has small ribbings on either side of
the spoon and the sectioning blade has two small knives that are only as far apart as the skins
attached to the outside of the fruit are. I can only assume this practice goes back to the
Victorian era when it was seen as especially sophisticated to make eating as unbearably difficult
and uncomfortable as possible.

Either way, eating grapefruit like an orange was a personal revolution!

Just when I started to enjoy the fruit on a regular basis, I became allergic. Still, I include the excruciating recipe for broiled
grapefruit halves in the following pages along with several other, less anxiety provoking,
delicious recipes to enjoy. Grapefruit is very acidic and can be used as you would use other
citrus (even to cook foods in its acid like cerviche or as an acid splash in a dye vat) or as a juice.
The first recipe is for a cocktail, because just thinking about the effort of eating a grapefruit half
makes me need one.

Grapefruit Recipes

How to Eat a Grapefruit like an Orange

• A Grapefruit
• A small knife

Instructions

1. Take the grapefruit in your hands. Create a small incision close to the stem of the
grapefruit, cutting a slit in the shell that your finger can fit into.
2. Peel the grapefruit with your hands allow the juice to flow down your arms and lick it up
as it does in great laps of ecstasy.
3. Optional: Dry the grapefruit shell in the hot sun or in a dehydrator for use when making
liquor infusions.
4. Make sure you peel as much of the white rind off the grapefruit as you can: it is horribly
bitter.
5. Gently and with much anticipation, peel each beautifully individually packaged slice of
juicy grapefruit from the next. Eat the grapefruit each slice at a time as the juice drips
down your chin and your tastebuds rejoice at the sour and sweet profanely indulgent
vessel of joy.
6. Feel incredible satisfaction at your small, but unmistakable rebellion against the
bourgeois notions of discipline and suffering to the purpose of tiny waistlines and
Victorian era outdated ideals. In other words, ...
7. Enjoy!