(Gerry Furth-Sides) Pixies are magical, and like anything enchanting they only come out at a certain time!  They are also bewitching because they are as sweet as a tangerine but just the right endearing size for a satisfying snack, a breakfast side dish, salad OR the squeeze of citrus on a salad to make it pop. We first encountered the pixies right in their own home, Ojai, so eating them takes us back to the Ojai Valley Inn and Resort every time we eat them.

Pixie tangerines are loved by everyone because of their bright orange, seedless segments that easily separate and are endearingly never over  two to three inches in diameter.  Their deep orange yellow skin can be smooth or slightly pebbly, varied as well in shape, size and texture for a little bit of novelty.

The Pixie’s story about coming to market is extraordinary and worth telling because the fruit takes a long time to come into bearing.  It even started on a fairytale note because at the time of its release in 1965 “tangerine season” was considered to be around Christmas time. So the Pixie came ripe at a time when no one was expecting to buy or sell tangerines.

Yet even from the start, commercial value was considered limited at best because trees don’t  fruit worth harvesting for at least 4 years, and the tree doesn’t come into anything approaching full bearing until 8 years. This was augmented by the fact that pixie’s are alternate bearing – meaning a cycle of heavy and then light crop years.  So when the pixie tangerine variety was introduced, it was designated as a “backyard tree.” Seasons are still limited to a little bit of an extension from March to May.  But for such a delicate growing life, this little orange-colored gem can retain its flavor and quality if stored in the home fridge for a outstanding long time.

The origin of the Pixie Tangerine is shrouded in a bit of mystery. Scientific literature says that the Pixie Tangerine is “a second generation hybrid (or possibly a self) obtained from open pollination of an F1 hybrid called a Kincy,” meaning that the “seed parent” was a tangerine variety called a Kincy (a cross between a Dancy and a King).  Still,  no one has identified the pollen parent.

Citrus breeder Howard Frost obtained the parent seed in 1927. Actual development and testing of the fruit didn’t begin until many years later, at the University of California at Riverside. UCR breeders spent a couple of decades planting out trees to see how they would grow under different conditions and what their fruit was like. In 1965, UCR plant breeders, James Cameron and Robert Soost, finally released the Pixie, which at the time they recommended only as a “backyard tree.”

Ignoring these citrus marketing conventions, two Ojai growers, Tony Thacher and Jim Churchill, planted commercial quantities of Pixie tangerines in the early 1980’s. It turned out that Pixie Tangerines grown in Ojai soared to popularity with their sweet, seedless, easy to peel characters.  By the mid-1990’s, other local growers joined the Ojai Valley Pixie Party.  Soon afterward, a Ojai Pixie Growers’ Association was created to share information about cultural practices and to develop a market for the locally grown fruit.

Back to the Pixie and the Ojai Valley Inn and Resort, where I so vividly remember an Ojai Valley Inn and Resort manager grabbing hold of my arm one evening to point out the pink-striped sky.  Ojai’s breathtaking sunsets, which appear other worldly though they actually derived from electromagnetic forces, have been affectionately labeled by residents as “pink moments.”  You could feel the Chumash Indians there, too, the same tribes who developed an incredibly sophisticated waterway system for food and product commerce those 10,000 years ago.  These days you can at least you can easily duplicate a part of the experience right in your own home, with Ojai Pixie tangerines for inspiration.

The post The Season of the Magical Ojai Pixie appeared first on Local Food Eater.