Orange You Glad

I learned that the gods ate nectar and ambrosia on Olympus from my bedraggled and dog eared and messy copy of D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths (1962)

We don’t eat nectar at Christmas, but we do eat ambrosia.

Probably not the Hellenic kind.

I’ve already made it today for tomorrow’s feast.

Our version is, once again, from our family’s best cook, Aunt Marion in Savannah, whose version was from her mama and her mama’s cook, Martha Shannon. I have added Cara Cara oranges to the original version. I’m sure Martha didn’t have access to that novel variety of pink oranges as she cooked in my great-grandparents’ kitchen

We serve ambrosia with Christmas breakfast

Ambrosia is fully Southern. There are all manner of versions of it. Some with nuts. Some with bing cherries. Some with mayonnaise. Some with coconut. Some with marshmallows.

Sectioning citrus takes a while. Like a while. It’s messy, too. Doing this for your family is an act of love.

Usually, I have orange and grapefruit juice seeping into the cuts of what I call Christmas hands, being raw from dousing in and out of hot water cooking and cleaning and polishing to welcome the Sweet Baby Jesus.

Usually, I section to that young boy soprano’s “Once in Royal David’s City, stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed….” filling King’s College, Cambridge, brought to you by Minnesota Public Radio

Orange you glad to know all this

I’m nothing if not traditional

Martha Shannon’s Ambrosia

1 bag navel oranges

1 bag Cara Cara oranges

3 large red grape fruit

20 oz can crushed pineapple in juice, drained

1 bag angel flake sweetened shredded coconut

Sugar

Take four oranges and one grape fruit and section them making sure no white parts are on the sections. I use a steak knife. I cut off ends of the fruit, then peel around the skin then go in and out of the sections between the pithy membranes to get the sections.

Place into whatever bowl you’re going to serve.

Sprinkle with a teaspoon or so of sugar. Take a third of the crushed pineapple and dab over the sections. Repeat until all of the citrus is used. Over the last layer, sprinkle coconut until the surface of the citrus and pineapple are covered. My bowl takes about half a bag of the flakes. Place in the refrigerator overnight. The sugar and pineapple work on the citrus and make a beautiful syrup.

Goes great with sausage, bacon, country ham, rib roast, tenderloin, pork roast

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and that there’s some ambrosia on your table tomorrow.