Currabinny Cooks: Two salads and a clementine curd that is perfect for cheering up January
Clementine curd is sweet and sour and ideal for new year's eating.
Clementine oranges of all kinds are at their best during Ireland's winter months; a bright, fragrant blessing to carry us through the darkest days of the year. At Christmas time, the clementine is one of the most popular and plentiful varieties, its tight, glossy skin often still attached to their sprig of zesty leaves. Many of us have fond childhood memories of when they were stuffed into Christmas stockings with other nostalgic treats like mini diecast cars and chocolate coins.
Most people probably don't know where this clementine tradition comes from, but the apocryphal story is rather a charming one. It tells how Saint Nicholas, the 4th-century Greek bishop upon whom Santa Claus was modelled, one day heard of a poor man who had failed to find suitors for his three daughters, lacking money for their dowries. Nicholas sought out the man's house and tipped three sacks of gold down the chimney, where the coins happened to land in the girls' stockings, which were drying beside the fire. The clementine (or oranges) in our modern Christmas stockings are said to be a symbol of the saint's generosity. Poverty and desire probably also played a role in fostering the custom in times past: oranges were not only an affordable gift, but also a brief taste of exotic, sunnier climes.
