http://blogs.pitch.com/fatcity/2009/01/america_inventor_of_orange_jui.php
Citrus is a global story but orange juice is 100 percent American
By Owen Morris in Out & About
Wednesday, Jan. 28 2009 @ 12:00PM
A smallish crowd showed up for Pierre Laszlo's speech last night at the Central Library, which is a shame because Laszlo is clearly passionate about citrus fruit, especially orange juice.
Speaking with an accent that sounded part French and part Roberto Benigni, Laszlo was in clear professor form delivering facts with PowerPoint slides to back him up. While Laszlo's book is about the history of citrus, his speech was in effet OJ 101.
Laszlo explained that while citrus has been grown for 6,000 years, it took an American way of thinking and, more importantly, a surplus of orange trees in California for somebody to invent orange juice. Lest you think all advertising is evil, it was the early 20th century's most famous advertising man, Albert Lasker, who came up with the idea of not throwing away extra oranges but turning them into liquid.
"Lasker spent a night trying to think of how to sell these oranges and by the morning he had it -- drink an orange." Recent improvements in pasteurization helped, and within a year Sunkist, the first orange juice company, was formed.
Instead of improving in flavor over the next 30 years, Americans started to look for ways to make it cheaper and last longer. "Orange juice is 95 percent water -- that's a lot of unnecessary water to be shipping," Laszlo said as he unveiled a slide showing orange powder, a WWII invention. While not as nutritious as the freshly squeezed stuff, orange powder proved to be a hit with the troops and the price was a hit with the government.
The 1950s saw a shift in the orange juice market. It went from primarily being marketed to children to "part of the American breakfast instead of stewed fruit, like prunes." The fact that returning soldiers had a taste for it didn't hurt. Florida started growing more oranges and a decade later, these growers formed a company now known as Tropicana. Even today, orange juice consumption continues to grow by whole percentage points a year. The average American now drinks four gallons per year.
Laszlo then got into the really interesting part, which is how orange juice is made. Turns out that the harvest month determines the species of orange the juice comes from. Orange juice made in October comes from Hamlin oranges; January is pineapple oranges; February is Valencia oranges. Also, factories don't make their money on juice. "The most valuable product in an orange juice factory is the peels, from where important chemicals for perfumes come from."
After talking briefly about orange juice fraud (when companies add beet sugar) Laszlo took questions. Someone asked if Richard Nixon had tried growing oranges but Laszlo wasn't sure (answer is yes, unsuccessfully). Someone else asked why no one thought to put orange juice in a glass before the 20th century. He paused before answering. "Citrus was a delicacy, an expensive treat... I found a Supreme Court case from 1850 that had a box of limes listed next to a case of champagne which tells you something... 50 years ago, the French would drink alcohol with breakfast but now, there's not so much difference between France and the U.S."
Funny, insightful and informative. To borrow a joke from Laszlo, this speech was no lemon.
