Lemons on Steroids

     We all have foods we love that remind us of our childhoods. One of my favorite childhood foods -- a love I carried with me into adulthood -- are lemons. I squeeze lemon onto everything. There's never less than half a dozen lemons in my fridge. When I buy them in bulk, my husband warns they'll go bad. They never do. They get used long before that.   

     I dress all my vegetables and salads the Italian way -- with olive oil and lemon. I squish fresh lemon on a steak, chicken, fish, fruit, fries, pasta, pretty much anything edible. Not to mention anything drinkable. 

    And when you see the lemons here in the south of Italy, where I was born, you can easily see why.    

    Southern Italian lemons are lemons on steroids. Big as melons. Huge, juicy, thick-skinned lemons everywhere. And all kinds of things made with lemons for sale.

     I remember the summer I first discovered the lemons of southern Italy. It was in Naples, and I was about 8 years old. My mother took me to an outdoor cafe down by the sea in the center of the city for an afternoon ice cream.

    We sat on a swing at the cafe looking out at the sea, swinging back and forth, holding hands, listening to all the honking horns and the Vespas, when I saw a waiter hurrying past with one of those huge lemons on his tray. Halved and filled with lemon gelato.  

    I told my mother I wanted to try whatever that was. And that was it pretty much.

    I thought about that lemon gelato in that big old halved lemon for months, maybe years, after I went back to the States. I dreamt of opening a neighborhood stand where I could serve ice cream in scooped-out lemons. I wanted to dedicate myself to halving big lemons and filling them with ice cream. I thought maybe it could become my life's vocation. 

    My mother listened patiently to all my lemon dreams, but the conversation would often end with, but, cara, they don't have lemons like that here. If you want to do that, it has to be in southern Italy. 

    I knew what she meant. I had certainly never seen them anywhere else, not even in Rome.

    But why, I would want to know. Why don't they have lemons like that here?

    Because lemons like that only come from southern Italy, she would tell me. Like really good mozzarella. 

    Only in southern Italy. Where I was born. Where I am now. Where the lemons are as big as melons.