Wednesday, February 16, 2011.
Competitive Oranges. Nuccio's Is Cheese City.
Last week I received a box of six oranges, packed carefully in a good-looking box with foam dividers to keep the oranges from touching. They were called "Heritage Select Navel Oranges." According to the press release, the trees from which these flawless beauties came were originally planted in the 1960s, all from one particular strain of navels grown in one particular spot in California. They are supposed to be extra, extra good.
This morning, I squeezed one of these pretties for juice. I poured it into a glass, rinsed out the juicer, then squeezed one of the Louisiana navel oranges from a forty-pound box I bought a few weeks ago. I checked the temperatures and microwaved the Louisiana juice (the orange had come from the refrigerator) for five seconds, to bring it up to the temperature of the Heritage Select. I gave the juices to Mary Ann in identical glasses (one with a tiny mark on the bottom) and asked her to pick her favorite. She did. Then I closed my eyes and asked her to hand one glass over to me, then the other. I tasted.
Unanimously and unambiguously, the Louisiana citrus won the tasting. The Heritage Selects sell for more than double the price of the Plaquemines navels. So why would anyone buy them? Because a) the skins on the Heritage select all but glow with perfection, while the Louisiana skins are blotchy with tiny brown scars; and 2) because each Heritage Select orange has a label that says "Heritage Select."
The correct response to these special qualities is, "So what?" I will keep drinking the Louisiana orange juice until it's gone for the season. I have already bought five boxes this year. I continue to maintain that for juice, they are the world's best oranges.
Mary Ann went into town to transport Mary Leigh to the airport. She's spending the weekend with her cousin Hillary in Memphis, where she goes to school. MA was still in town at dinner, and had in mind a Harahan restaurant she's heard a number of people recommend on the radio show.
Nuccio's is a neighborhood eatery across Jefferson Highway from my grammar school alma mater, St. Rita's. When I pulled into the parking lot, I had to pull right out again. No spaces. Once inside, however, I found only three or four other customers inside. It's the sewing store next door, they said. They had a class tonight, with enough people to fill the lot.
Mary Ann was running late. I ordered a cheese pizza to kill the time. She and the pizza arrived simultaneously. I guess I should say something about her first, but the pizza was a bit unusual. The exterior of the crust was orange--from whatever it was that colored the cheese, I imagine. And there was a lot of cheese on there--too much, I'd say. The sauce had a few more visible herbs than usual. But the thing didn't taste abnormal in any way, despite the orange hue. It was fairly decent, but not in the upper tier of local pizzas.
One of the callers said that Nuccio's had as fine a turtle soup as he ever tasted. How could I resist? It was well-made, all right, with the old-fashioned touch of adding hard-boiled eggs to the bowl. The eggs are in most versions, but chopped fine. These eggs were in big chunks, the way they used to be.
Mary Ann has been beating up on me lately for leading her away from her diet and into the deadly sin of gluttony. Why, then, did she order lasagna? It was served in a big soup bowl in which it obviously had been baked to order. The lasagna was like the pizza in being overwhelmed by cheese. MA dug around looking for the noodles, and found them only after going deep. Again, the flavor was fine, but the look was unconventional.
My entree was really an appetizer, although the price was higher than those of most of the entrees. "Tabasco oysters," they called them. They were nice big oysters, coated in cornmeal and fried, served with a couple of different sauces. The Tabasco aspect was lost on me. After a couple of bites (these oysters were too big not to cut in half), I applied the amount of Tabasco that I would for not-so-Tabasco oysters. "Maybe the idea is that you put your own Tabasco on," Mary Ann said. Maybe so. But everywhere else they call that dish "fried oysters."
The Nuccio's people were very welcoming. Our waitress was a touch sassy--something I like in a server. It adds color to the meal. Maybe it's a function of my age, but I find most servers too polite these days.
Nuccio's Italian Deli. Harahan: 7105 Jefferson Hwy. 504-305-1014.
