Bitter orange


Bitter orange, Seville orange, sour orange, bigarade orange, or marmalade orange is the citrus tree Citrus × aurantium and its fruit. It is native to Southeast Asia and has been spread by humans to many parts of the world. It is probably a cross between the pomelo, Citrus maxima, and the mandarin orange, Citrus reticulata.

History

Wild trees are found near small streams in generally secluded and wooded parts of Florida and the Bahamas after it was introduced to the area from Spain, where it had been introduced and cultivated heavily beginning in the 10th century by the Moors.

Usage

Many varieties of bitter orange are used for their essential oil, and are found in perfume, used as a flavoring or as a solvent, and also for consumption. The Seville orange variety is used in the production of marmalade and also used to make French bigarade.
Bitter orange is also employed in herbal medicine as a stimulant and appetite suppressant, due to its active ingredient, synephrine. Bitter orange supplements have been linked to a number of serious side effects and deaths, and consumer groups advocate that people avoid using the fruit medically. It is still not concluded if bitter orange affects medical conditions of heart and cardiovascular organs, by itself or in formulae with other substances. Standard reference materials are released concerning the properties in bitter orange by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, for ground fruit, extract and solid oral dosage form, along with those packaged together into one item.

Varieties

While the raw pulp is not edible, bitter orange is widely used in cooking.
The Seville orange is prized for making British orange marmalade, being higher in pectin than the sweet orange, and therefore giving a better set and a higher yield. Once a year, oranges of this variety are collected from trees in Seville and shipped to Britain to be used in marmalade. However, the fruit is rarely consumed locally in Andalusia. This reflects the historic Atlantic trading relationship with Portugal and Spain; the earliest recipe for 'marmelat of oranges' date from 1677.
Bitter orange—bigarrade—was used in all early recipes for duck à l'orange, originally called canard à la bigarrade.
It is also used in compotes and for orange-flavored liqueurs. The peel can be used in the production of bitters. The unripe fruit, called narthangai, is commonly used in Southern Indian cuisine, especially in Tamil cuisine. It is pickled by cutting it into spirals and stuffing it with salt. The pickle is usually consumed with yoghurt rice called thayir sadam. The fresh fruit is also used frequently in pachadis.
The Belgian Witbier is often spiced with the peel of the bitter orange.
In Finland and Sweden, bitter orange peel is used in dried, ground form in gingerbread, some Christmas bread, and mämmi. It is also used in the Nordic glögi.
In Greece and Cyprus, the nerántzi or κιτρομηλο, respectively, is one of the most prized fruits used for spoon sweets, and the C. aurantium tree is a popular ornamental tree. In Albania as well, nerënxa or portokalli i hidhur is used commonly in spoon sweets.
In Turkey, juice of the ripe fruits can be used as salad dressing, especially in Çukurova region. However, in Iraqi cuisine, a bitter orange or raranj in Iraqi is used to complement dishes such as charred fish, the juice is popularly used as a salad dressing, souring agent in stews and pickles or as a marinade. The blossoms are collected fresh to make a prized sweet-smelling aromatic jam, or added to brewing tea.
In the Americas, the juice from the ripe fruit is used as a marinade for meat in Nicaraguan, Cuban, Dominican, and Haitian cooking, as it is in Peruvian ceviche. In Yucatán, it is a main ingredient of the cochinita pibil. In Cuba, a traditional Christmas time dessert is made with the peel of the bitter orange cooked in syrup and eaten with cheese and buñuelos.

Herbal stimulant

The extract of bitter orange has been marketed as dietary supplement purported to act as a weight-loss aid and appetite suppressant. Bitter orange contains the tyramine metabolites N-methyltyramine, octopamine, and synephrine, substances similar to epinephrine, which act on the α1 adrenergic receptor to constrict blood vessels and increase blood pressure and heart rate. Several low-quality clinical trials have had results of p-synephrine increasing weight loss slightly.

Similarities to ephedra

Following bans on the herbal stimulant ephedra in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere, bitter orange has been substituted into "ephedra-free" herbal weight-loss products by dietary supplement manufacturers. Like most dietary supplement ingredients, bitter orange has not undergone formal safety testing, but it is believed to cause the same spectrum of adverse events as ephedra. The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health found, "currently little evidence that bitter orange is safer to use than ephedra."
Case reports have linked bitter orange supplements to strokes, angina, and ischemic colitis. Following an incident in which a healthy young man suffered a myocardial infarction linked to bitter orange, a case study found that dietary supplement manufacturers had replaced ephedra with its analogs from bitter orange.

Drug interactions

Bitter orange may have serious interactions with drugs such as statins in a similar way to the long list of grapefruit–drug interactions.

Other uses

This orange is used as a rootstock in groves of sweet orange. The fruit and leaves make lather and can be used as soap. The hard, white or light-yellow wood is used in woodworking and made into baseball bats in Cuba.