How Calamansi Juice Reveals a Filipino Virtue I Admire

Calamansi juice is sorta like the Filipino version of lemonade or limeaide.  I don't remember when I first tried it, but it was one of the first Filipino drinks I tried.  Its funny how it is described.  The size of the fruit is very small, like the size of a kumquat or mandarin orange.  Actually the fruit is just that,

"the result of a rare natural cross between two closely related genera, the Citrus and the Fortunella, and carries the characteristics of both the parents. The Fortunella parent, Kumquat, lends a dense shrubby habitat, small leaves and a hardy constitution, whereas the Citrus reticulata, Mandarin Orange, lends thorns, tasty fruit and ease of peeling. So the Calamansi has small, easy to peel fruit with the sour acid flavor." (see link here)

In the Philippines it is usually seen and used in its unripened stage, which is green with a strong sour flavor.  But when fully ripe it is orange in color and slightly more sweet but still retaining its sour punch.  I even read that it can be used for various medicinal purposes, a couple being removing itchiness from an insect bit and helping to deodorize underarms.  I'll have to remember that once we move and are fighting off mosquito bites and sweating in the high humidity.

My in-laws gave me a bag of ripe calamansis last week.  I was excited because there have been a few Filipino recipes I have made that called for calamansi, but I had to substitute a lime and splash of orange juice in it's place.  They were starting to go bad so we used them up this morning.  I made crepes for breakfast, so instead of squeezing lemon on them with powdered sugar and butter we used the calamansi - and it was perfect!  So with the rest I found a recipe on the internet and made it into juice.

It was yummy.  Jakob's comment was "oh Mommy this is the very best juice ever!"  When I was making it, it reminded me of a common Filipino characteristic I admire and hope to learn better myself, patience and serving others.  I love how as a general description, Filipinos are more relational orientated rather than time orientated.  I had to cut up 15 calamansis and hand squeeze them in order to get just 1/2 cup of juice.  After adding the water and sugar I got about 2 1/2 cups of juice, or 20 ounces.  In American sizes that is a medium drink at any local restaurant.  I could easily see how time consuming it would be to make enough of this juice to serve at your party.  And this is one of the most common drinks?  My American mindset tells me such an equation is not worth the effort.  Funny how even in learning how to cook in another culture you learn about the culture itself and what they value.  Perhaps expanding my Filipino cooking will be one hands-on practical way I can start to learn and understand how to value relationships over time.