AIBU in being dismayed at satsuma variance?

[Mysterian]

You buy a hairnet full of satsumas and they're delicious. Juicy, tasty, and easy to peel. You go back the next day for another hairnet full and it turns out they're solid, hard to peel, tasteless orange packets and sadness and tragedy.

Why is it so hard to trust a satsuma?

Pears and peaches are exactly the same.
One week delicious, order more and they're shit.

Eww I do not like a floury apple either.

What about bananas. One day they are green and rock hard and then you blink and they are black and squishy.

I'm forever falling out with fruit.

You need to check the variety. Clemenules are the most commonly available and to my mind an abomination - too sweet and watery with no flavour. I like mine to have a bit of bite. Look for Nadorcott, clemenvilla, clemenpom or tang gold on the label. (not a complete guarantee, but much more reliable than not)

I usually go for cheap ones so when I'm let down by them I feel slightly less heartbroken.

The punk bank would be called Satsuma Variance and the Citric Disappointments.

@Leflic, thanks for the heads up, I've added a bag to my next Ocado order! The most recent review said they smelled like a septic tank, but I'll hope that was either a deranged reviewer or a very unfortunate mishap in that one bag.

Yanbu I go to Waitrose as they are most reliable for naatjies as they are known in our house (South African name for them). Dh grew up with them growing in his back garden and is addicted to them. We get through about 20 a week at least. But yes a crappy naajtie is one of life’s big disappointments.

There's a plum tree in my garden (I didn't plant it fwiw) that is even more untrustworthy than all those satsumas. There's obviously something wrong with it because the fruit literally goes from inedibly underripe to rotten without ever passing through the nice stage So annoying!

They are out of season at the moment anyway aren't they?

I do like them when they are nice. They are easy to peel and I am lazy.

But I have to admit a clementine is nicer, but I am too lazy to peel them.

YANBU OP. I love baggy Christmas Satsumas and couldn't even get those last year, well not decent ones anyway

I love you for starting this thread. The real world is horrible at the moment. Pondering the untrustworthiness of satsumas is exactly what I needed.

i haven;'t had a satsuma for about three years...I bough one of those grocer boxes from Lidl, or maybe Aldi ...and they were so good, sharp sweet juicy little wonders I ate the whole box in about three days and ended up with a coldsore....

I totally blamed the satsumas and have taken against them ever since.

Dh goes through phases with them but recently he has been moaning about them being disappointing and shrivelled inside....I make them into marmalade instead...and eat that .

I think I love you OP. You are not alone. This is the best thread ever.

I'd love some marmalade on white buttered toast now.

The only satsumas you can trust are Christmas satsumas, the rest of the year the variance is so extreme that disappointment is inevitable

Actual satsumas are in the shops now. We've had a few good bags of them from Sainsbury's.

The thing that drives me mad as a satsuma lover and all other small orange fruit hater is that when you search for satsumas when shopping online at Sainsbury's, the first ten suggested products are every other small orange fruit, clementine handwash etc before you get to actual satsumas.

I also cannot understand how many people dont know the difference between them...

At last, some sanity on this issue. DH has gone NC with all orange citrus fruit for now, but when they were in favour I was instructed to only buy a particular kind, and when inevitably disappointment reared its head, I must have 'bought the wrong ones'. 35p each, they were. I'll only eat them at Christmas, as a mark of civilisation.
The ILs have easy peelers on their shopping list every single week. I'm never quite sure what I'm meant to be buying.

I also cannot understand how many people dont know the difference between them...

Um, sorry but I don't! "Easy peelers" (sounds like police with loose morals) is fine by me! What actually is the difference, to people who can tell?

Whatever happened to tangerines?

Oh yes, and they're the best fruit and limited to just two short periods a year where they even pretend to be trying hard.

And in our house if the first one anyone tries is a rubbish one, the rest get left to dissolve into blue fluffiness through no fault of their own....!

I’ve just signed up to done Crowd Funding farmers site. Mostly because I had run out of lemons and everything I wanted to cook that week ; risotto, cheesecake, fish and chips required a sodding lemon.
So I’ve a crate of organic unwaxed lemons arriving from Spain on Monday.

But anyway the point is ....apparently it’s the end of the season! And oranges finished a while ago, I thought citrus season was all summer long but seems not. So I don’t think we know enough about fruit really.
The bananas trade was an interesting thread,

Citrus fruit once did me the favour of givi g me end of days gut spasms and diarrhoea. I might risk the odd squish of lemon or lime but can justifiably save myself the disappointment of a bad satsuma, now.

@Lochinvar2020 iss that a proper plum tree or a Chinese plum? I have a Chinese plum tree (had 2 but the other shed its soggy load all over the front pavement and was attractive for 4 days in February) and the fruit is never edible without a long, convoluted ritual involving lots of sugar and salt

You can't get satsumas in June. You only get them in a very short window between Nov-Dec. Outside of this they're not satsumas.

Ive long lost track of what cheery little orange fruit is meant to be in season at any point in time. Mandarins, Tangerines Satsumas, Clementines, Easy peelers, Nadorcotts, there seems to be no way to tell whether they will be good or not and its always a form of citrus roulette.

I have taken to writing 'small citrus thingys' on the shopping list and hoping for the best.

What @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g said.

People are getting confused here and seem to be wrongly naming small citrus fruits as satsumas. Satsumas are only available in this country for a few halcyon weeks before Christmas. The rest of the time we get the so called easy peelers, tangerines, clementines and possibly mandarins. Satsumas are far superior to all the rest.

Thank goodness I've found My People.

(But i am going to have to search for satsumas now that there are rumours - even though it's June?!)