The "citrons" that are shipped "all that way" from Palestine
to Ireland are one of the original citrus fruits, ancestors of
modern-day lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits, and other
products of hybridization. They play an important role in the
Jewish Sukkot ritual, as Bloom thinks when he remembers Moisel saying, "Must
be without a flaw."
Scientists believe that the four original citrus fruits were
the citron, the pomelo, the mandarin, and the papeda. Through
cross-breeding human beings have developed the forms that are
more familiar today. Unsliced citrons look like lemons, but
their rind is leathery, the pith is very thick, and the
relatively small amount of flesh inside is not tart. Not much
is done with the juicy flesh, but the white pith is cooked
with sugar to make jams, preserves, relishes, pickles, and
fruitcakes. The outer rind, called the flavedo, is intensely
fragrant, as Bloom recalls happily: "Nice to hold,
cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils
and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume."
Jews use the citron ritually during Sukkot, the week-long
Feast of Ingathering. This autumn holiday celebrates both the
agricultural harvest and the exodus from Egypt, when the
Hebrews lived in tents for 40 years. On each day of the week,
a citron fruit (called the etrog in Israel) is
brought into the synagogue and waved about with three species
of greenery––a closed date palm frond and leafy branches of
willow and myrtle trees. Various kinds of symbolism attach to
these Four Species.
After their dispersal in the Roman era Jews spread the citron
around the Mediterranean, and since returning to Palestine
they have cultivated citron trees there, as Bloom notes in the
ad he reads: "Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of
Jaffa. You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for
you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons." The fruits vary
in size and appearace, and specimens used for Sukkot must be "without
a flaw." Bloom recalls that "They fetched
high prices too, Moisel told me." Considerable sums
can be spent obtaining the perfect etrog.
