Once upon a time, there was a fruit in Southeast Asia. The Persians bought it from the Chinese. The Arabs spread it all over the Mediterranean and called it orange. In the South of Spain, during the Arab reign of Al-Andalus, the orange groves were so florescent in Seville that the fruit took the name of the city. Today the bitter orange is known as “Seville orange” all over the world.But there is another kind of orange, the sweet one. The Portuguese found it in India in the 15th century and brought it to Europe. They planted it all over their trade roots in Africa, America and Asia. And the Arabs saw it was different from the orange they knew already, and so did the Greeks and the Turks and the Persians and the Afghans. So, they gave it the name of the country its traders came from: Portugal.It still stands today.
When Portuguese troops arrived in Afghanistan, one of the few places on this Earth where there's no memory of Portuguese presence, the natives laughed when they heard the name of the country and then pointed to the fruit. Soon our soldiers were about to discover that both in Iraq and in Iran Portugal is known as the "orange country". It's funny. It reminds me of the first tourists, in the 18th century, who came here to discover the land of "oranges and guitars". Spain is also a land of oranges and guitars, but there it is, the difference between the two oranges and the two guitars is like the difference between the two countries: unless you know about it, you think it's all the same. But it isn’t.
During the 19th century, the "Essence of Portugal" was turned into a very fashionable parfum, known as Eau du Portugal, in France, and as Lisbon Water, in England.
In the end, I believe this is good for us. The colour orange is warm and the fruit "portukal" is sweet in flavour and in scent. In the East, people love my country and get lots of vitamin C from it. Thank God for that!
By the way, I like sweet oranges, but my favorite citrine is tangerine, the real ancient kind, not one of the so many hybrids on sale nowadays. The colour is the same, though: orange.
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