3 Jul /14

Citron

Citron - Word of the day - EVS Translations
Citron – Word of the day – EVS Translations

The book L’esclarcissement de la langue francoyse is said to be the first book of French grammar for English learners, despite its French title. Published in 1530, it was written by a priest in the court of Henry VIII who was also a tutor to the royal family. Hundreds of words can be found in English for the first time in this book including antique, astonishing and bumble bee, and it is also where the word citron first appears being described as a citrus fruit.

Twenty five years later, in 1555, the word turns up again in Richard Eden’s translation Decades of Newe Worlde when the writer refers to “the kind of citrons which are commonly called lemons”.

The citron is a large citrus fruit which originated in Asia and has been cultivated for thousands of years with detailed references in classical literature on how to grow the fruit. It looks like a lemon, although the flesh is drier and less bitter. Despite its use for curing ailments in ancient and medieval times, these days it is used for its zest and a food product known as succade which is the candied form of its inner rind.

The citron is prevalent in Greece and Southern Italy, but its history was short lived in the USA; after being introduced in California in the 1880s, it did not survive a spate of bad weather and was never cultivated commercially there again.

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