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You squeeze a lemon over your fish, into your tea, over a bowl of cut fruit, and you get three sad drops and a lot of nothing. You cut it open expecting juice and find a thick white wall of pith and a few dry pockets that barely wet your fingers. And you paid near a dollar for it. The plain truth is, you picked a dud, and you never knew there was any other kind to pick.
Here is what ought to bother you. Standing in that same bin, an arm's length from the dry one you grabbed, were two or three lemons heavy and full of juice, and the folks who know reached straight past you and took them. The good lemons go first. They always go first. We do not grow lemons in our cold country, so I come to them as a buyer the same as you, but my grandmother could read a lemon in her hand in a way that seems near lost now, and today I will teach it to you.
Here is what I walk you through in this one:
✓ The single best tell of all, why the heavy lemon is the juicy one, and why the knowing folks grab them first
✓ The thick bumpy skin trick that has you paying good money for the part you throw away
✓ The g
You squeeze a lemon over your fish, into your tea, over a bowl of cut fruit, and you get three sad drops and a lot of nothing. You cut it open expecting juice and find a thick white wall of pith and a few dry pockets that barely wet your fingers. And you paid near a dollar for it. The plain truth is, you picked a dud, and you never knew there was any other kind to pick.
Here is what ought to bother you. Standing in that same bin, an arm's length from the dry one you grabbed, were two or three lemons heavy and full of juice, and the folks who know reached straight past you and took them. The good lemons go first. They always go first. We do not grow lemons in our cold country, so I come to them as a buyer the same as you, but my grandmother could read a lemon in her hand in a way that seems near lost now, and today I will teach it to you.
Here is what I walk you through in this one:
✓ The single best tell of all, why the heavy lemon is the juicy one, and why the knowing folks grab them first
✓ The thick bumpy skin trick that has you paying good money for the part you throw away
✓ The g
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You squeeze a lemon over your fish or into your tea or over a bowl of cut fruit to keep
00:05it from
00:06browning and you get three sad drops and a lot of nothing. You cut into it expecting juice and you
00:13find a thick white wall of pith and a few dry pockets that barely wet your fingers. And you
00:19paid near a dollar for that lemon. The plain truth is you picked a dud and you never knew there
00:27was
00:27any other kind to pick because nobody ever taught you what to look for. Here is the part that ought
00:33to bother you. Standing in that very same bin and arm's length from the dry one you grabbed were two
00:40or three lemons heavy and full of juice and the folks who know reached straight past you and took
00:47them. The good lemons go first. They always go first. And if you do not know how to spot them,
00:54you will spend your whole life buying the ones everybody else left behind.
01:01I am Elias. My family came over from the Palatinate in 1838 and we have farmed this Lancaster County
01:08ground ever since. Now I will be straight with you. We do not grow lemons here. The cold would
01:15never allow it. So I come to the lemon as a buyer at the market, same as you do. But
01:21my grandmother could
01:22stand at a fruit stand and read a lemon in her hand in a way that seems near lost now,
01:28and she taught it to me, and today I am going to teach it to you. Five things. Five things
01:35most people
01:36miss every single time, and once you know them, you will never again be the one who took home the
01:42dry
01:42one. I want to tell you about my grandmother first, because it is from her that all of this comes,
01:49and because a thing taught is held better than a thing merely told. When I was a boy, going to
01:56the
01:56market with her was a small trial, because she was slow, and she was slow on purpose. The other women
02:03would come and fill their baskets in five minutes and be gone. My grandmother would stand at a bin of
02:09lemons or oranges with her eyes half closed, picking one up, weighing it, setting it down, picking up
02:17another, turning it in the light, pressing it with her old thumb, and she would do this for what felt
02:23to a boy like an hour. I would tug at her apron and beg her to hurry, and she would
02:29say to me,
02:30Elias, the man who is in a hurry pays twice. She did not mean it as a scolding. She meant
02:37it as a law
02:38of the world, sure as gravity. The hurried man grabs the first bright thing and pays for it twice,
02:46once at the till, and once again in disappointment at home. The patient hand pays once. Everything I am
02:54about to tell you she could do in ten seconds by the end, because she had done it ten thousand
03:00times,
03:01and her hands knew a good lemon the way your hands know a doorknob in the dark. You will get
03:08there too, but first you have to learn the five things her hands knew. Let me give you the first
03:15one, because it is the most important by far, and it is the one the knowing folks use to clean
03:21out the
03:21good lemons before you ever get there. The first thing, and the single best tell there is. Heft it.
03:29Weigh it in your hand. The heavy lemon is the juicy one. This is the whole secret of a good
03:37lemon in one move, and almost nobody does it. A lemon is mostly meant to be juice. So the one
03:44that is heavy for its size, heavier than it looks like it has any right to be, is heavy because
03:50it
03:50is packed full of juice inside. And the one that feels light, that feels airy and hollow when you lift
03:58it, is light because the inside has gone dry and pithy, more white packing than juice.
04:05Here is how my grandmother taught me to feel it, and I want you to do this the very next
04:10time you are at
04:10the store, because reading about it is nothing, and feeling it is everything. Pick up two lemons of the
04:18very same size, one in each hand, and just hold them, and let your hands tell you. You will feel
04:25it at once,
04:25plain as anything. One is a little stone, and the other is a little balloon. The stone is heavy with
04:33juice. The balloon is light with air and dry pith. Your hands know the difference before your head
04:40does. Take the stone. Every time, take the stone. And here is why you must do this before the knowing
04:49shopper does. The heavy lemons get picked out of the bin first, because the folks who learned this trick
04:55reach straight for them, and weigh them, and carry them off. Come late in the day, come at the end
05:02of
05:02the market, and you are picking through what they rejected, the light dry ones they weighed in their
05:09hands, and put back. So, this is not just how you pick a good lemon. It is why you should
05:16not dawdle, and why
05:18you should not buy by the eye from across the aisle. The juice is going home in someone else's bag
05:25while you
05:25are standing there reading the labels and trusting the color. Get your hands on them, and get your hands on
05:33them early. Quick word before I go further. The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than
05:41fits in any one video. I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com. The book is
05:50the long
05:50version. If you want it, it is there. I will not mention it again. The second thing follows right from
05:58the first, and it is the one the store uses to fool you into thinking you are getting more for
06:04your
06:04money. Look at the skin and feel it. You want thin, smooth, fine-grained skin. You do not want thick,
06:14bumpy, coarse skin. Here is the trick of it, and it is a real trick that catches good, honest people
06:22every day. You see a great big lemon with a thick, pebbly, bumpy hide on it, and it looks like
06:29more
06:30lemon, more for your dollar, more to squeeze. It is the opposite, and the opposite is not close.
06:38That thick, bumpy skin is exactly what it looks like, thick skin. All that bigness you are admiring
06:46is rind and white pith, the part you throw away or scrape into the hen bucket, and there is precious
06:53little juice hiding in the dried out middle of it. Meanwhile, the lemon with the thin, smooth,
07:00fine skin, the one that feels almost slick and tight under your thumb, is a lemon where the flesh and
07:07the
07:07juice take up the room inside instead of the peel. Think on what you are actually buying. You are not
07:15buying peel. A little zest off the top is all the peel you will ever use. You are buying juice.
07:23So, why pay
07:25for a great thick coat of the part you discard? Run your thumb over it. Smooth and fine and thin
07:33-skinned
07:33beats big and bumpy every time, and that big, bumpy beauty that caught your eye is a trick that has
07:41you
07:41paying good money for the very part you will cut off and throw out. Now, there is one honest exception
07:48I will give you, because I will not have you calling me a liar in the comments. If you are
07:54buying a lemon
07:55mostly for its zest, for the bright oil in the peel to flavor a cake or a tea, then a
08:01thicker skinned lemon
08:02gives you more to grate, and that is fine and right for that one purpose. But for juice, which is
08:10what
08:10most folks want most of the time, thin and smooth wins, and it is not close. Know what you are
08:18buying it
08:18for. The third thing is the one almost nobody does, and it costs them every single time. Give it a
08:26gentle
08:27squeeze. Feel for a little give. You want it to give just slightly under your hand, not hard as a
08:34ball,
08:35and not soft and squashy. Most folks never lay a hand on the lemon at all. They see yellow, they
08:42bag it,
08:43they go. And that is exactly why they get home to a rock that will not give up its juice,
08:49no matter how
08:50hard they roll it and press it. A lemon that is hard as a wooden ball all the way through,
08:56that does not
08:57yield one bit when you cup it and press, was picked too green and has not come ripe and full,
09:04and it will
09:05give you little for all your squeezing. A lemon with a gentle springy give to it, that yields just a
09:11touch
09:12when you press and then pushes back, like the firm part of your palm below the thumb, that one is
09:18ripe
09:19and full and ready to run with juice. But mind the other end of it, too, because there is a
09:25wrong
09:26kind of give. If it gives too easily, if it feels soft and squashy, and your thumb sinks in and
09:33stays,
09:34that one is old and going off, and the juice inside is turning and souring past use. So you are
09:41hunting
09:41that middle place, a slight living give, firm but not stony, yielding but not soft. One gentle squeeze
09:51in the store, one second of your time, and you will know what is inside before you ever pay a
09:58cent for
09:59it. My grandmother did this to every single fruit she ever bought, and she was never once fooled.
10:06The fourth thing is about color, and here the lemon is more honest with you than most fruit,
10:12if you only know how to read it. You want a deep, even, true yellow. You do not want any
10:20green left
10:21in the skin. Now with a great many fruits, the color lies to you outright. A red apple can be
10:28mealy,
10:28a red strawberry can be sour. The color is a poor guide. But a lemon is fairly honest, and the
10:36green
10:36is the thing to watch. A lemon with green still in its skin, especially up around the stem end where
10:44it
10:44ripens last, was picked too soon, before it ever finished. And here is the hard truth that the store
10:52will never tell you. A lemon picked too green is sharp and harsh and short on juice, and it will
11:01not
11:01finish ripening on your counter the way a banana or a pear will. What a lemon was on the day
11:08it was picked
11:09is very near what it will always be. The green will fade toward yellow as it sits, yes, and that
11:17is what
11:17fools people. They think it ripened. It did not. It only changed color. It is the same under-ripe,
11:26juice-poor lemon it always was, now wearing a yellower coat. So that lemon with the green cast
11:34that looks so fresh and lively in the bin, pass it by, no matter how pretty and spring green it
11:42looks.
11:42It is not fresh. It is unfinished, and it will let you down in the glass. You want the deep,
11:50full,
11:51even yellow, the same all over, the color of a lemon that was allowed to ripen all the way before
11:58any
11:59hand took it from the tree. And the fifth thing is the one that separates a truly fresh lemon from
12:07one
12:07that has been sitting in the back of a store for three long weeks, slowly drying out while it waited
12:13for you. Look for a glossy, firm skin with a little live sheen to it. Turn away from skin that
12:22has gone
12:23dull, dry, hard, or wrinkled. A fresh lemon, lately picked, has a faint shine to its skin and a firm,
12:32taut feel, the oils still alive and bright in the peel. You can near smell it, that clean, sharp lemon
12:42smell that comes off a fresh one when you scratch the skin with your nail. As a lemon sits and
12:48sits,
12:49though, week after week under the store lights, it slowly dries from the inside out, and the skin is the
12:57part that tells on it, the way a man's face tells his age. The shine dulls first, then the skin
13:05goes
13:05hard and a little leathery to the touch. And if it has sat a long while, you will see the
13:11first fine
13:12wrinkling start, the skin beginning to pull and pucker and pinch as the juice inside evaporates away to
13:20nothing. By the time you can plainly see that dullness and that wrinkle, the juice is already
13:27half gone, dried up inside the peel while the lemon sat in storage. So you want the one with the
13:35live
13:35sheen and the firm, taut skin and the bright, clean smell. Dull, dry, hard, and wrinkled means old and
13:47hollow within, however bright a yellow it still pretends to be on the outside. So there are your
13:55five, the five that most people miss every time they shop. Heft it and take the heavy one, for the
14:03heavy
14:04lemon is the juicy lemon, and that one tell alone will serve you better than all the rest. Choose thin,
14:12smooth skin over thick, bumpy skin, so you are buying juice and not a thick coat of pith you will
14:21throw
14:21away. Give it a gentle squeeze for that living give, not stony hard and not soft and squashy, but firm
14:31and springing back. Look for deep, even yellow with no green left in it, the mark of a lemon that
14:39ripened
14:40fully before it was picked. And take the one with the glossy, firm, fresh skin, not the dull, dry,
14:49wrinkled one that has sat in the back too long. Five things, not one of them taking more than a
14:55moment,
14:56and together they are the whole difference between a lemon that runs with juice over your hand and one
15:02that gives you three dry drops and a wasted dollar. Now let me tell you why this matters more than
15:09it
15:09might seem, because a lemon is a small thing, but a good one does a great deal of work in
15:16a kitchen.
15:17A truly juicy lemon is half the cost of a jar of bottled juice and ten times the flavor, and
15:24it does so
15:25much. The juice over a fish or a roast chicken. A good squeeze into the water you set cut apples
15:32and
15:32pears in to keep them from browning, an old trick that works because the lemon does. The lemonade on a
15:40hot day, which my own next video will show you how to make the old way, and which lives or
15:46dies on
15:47whether your lemons had any juice to give in the first place. The bright zest for a cake. The half
15:54a lemon with
15:55salt that scours a copper pot or a wooden cutting board, clean and sweet-smelling when nothing else
16:02will, a thing my grandmother did every week. A juicy lemon is a useful, hard-working little fruit. A dry
16:11one is a dollar in the bin and a job half done. So it is worth the ten seconds to
16:17choose right, more worth
16:19than people ever stop to think. Let me give you one more bit of plain market wisdom while we are
16:26here,
16:26because it goes hand in hand with the five, and it will save you money on top of saving you
16:32disappointment. When you do find a bin with good, heavy lemons in it, do not buy just the one. This
16:41is
16:41the time to buy a few. A good lemon keeps a long while if you treat it right, far longer
16:47than most
16:48folks think. Left out on the counter in a bowl, a lemon will start to dry and harden in a
16:54week or so,
16:55losing the very juice you paid for. But put those same lemons in the cold in the bottom drawer of
17:02your
17:03ice box, and they will hold their juice for the better part of a month, sometimes longer. My grandmother
17:09kept hers in a crock in the cool of the cellar, down where the root vegetables went, and they lasted
17:16and lasted. So when the bin is good, lay in a supply, store them cold, and you will have a
17:23juicy lemon to
17:24hand for weeks without going back to take your chances on a bad bin. And here is the trick within
17:31the
17:32trick. A lemon that is starting to go a little firm and dry, if you set it in warm water
17:38for a few
17:39minutes before you cut it, or roll it hard under your palm on the counter to break up the pulp
17:45inside,
17:46it will give up far more of what juice it has left. The old people wasted nothing, and they knew
17:53a
17:53hundred small ways to coax the last good out of a thing before it was spent. Now let me tell
18:01you who
18:01profits from your not knowing these five. Not to rile you up, just so you see the shape of the
18:08thing,
18:09because once you see it, you cannot unsee it. The store has no reason in the world to teach you
18:16that
18:17the heavy, thin-skinned lemon is the better one, because the big, bumpy, light one rings up at the
18:23very same price or more on account of being bigger and looking grander. They are perfectly content for
18:31you to buy with your eye, to grab the biggest, brightest one in the bin and pay for a fistful
18:37of dry pith. The dry lemon and the juicy lemon cost them the same to stock and cost you the
18:45same at the
18:46till. The only one who ever loses by your not knowing is you, every single time you squeeze out
18:55three sad drops and have to reach for a second lemon to finish the job, buying two where one good
19:02one
19:03would have done. That is the quiet cost of buying by the eye, a little waste every week, year upon
19:11year.
19:12I am not telling you a man sat in a back room and schemed this against you. No one had
19:18to. It is
19:19worse than a conspiracy, because it is a system nobody had to coordinate. It simply costs the store
19:26nothing for you to keep buying dry lemons, and it costs you a little more every time you do. And
19:34so it
19:34goes on, quietly, until somebody teaches you to weigh the fruit in your hand.
19:41So here is what I will leave you with, and I mean it plain. The next time you are at
19:46the market, you are
19:47going to walk up to that lemon bin and you have a choice to make. The same choice you make
19:52every week
19:53without knowing it. You can do what you have always done. Grab the brightest one your eye lands on, trust
20:00the color, and take your chances at home. Or you can do the five things in about 10 seconds with
20:06your hands and
20:07not just your eyes, and walk away with the heaviest, smoothest, ripest, freshest lemon in the whole bin,
20:15while everyone else picks through the dry ones you left behind. The good ones are sitting in that bin
20:21right now. They will not be there long, because the folks who know are reaching for them first. Be the
20:28one who knows what to reach for, not the one who gets home, cuts it open, and wonders yet again
20:34why
20:35there is no juice. Now I want to hear from you, and I ask honest, because I learned the whole
20:41country
20:41from these comments. Tell me in the comments below, when you cut your lemons open, how often do you find
20:48a dry one, and which of these five things had you never once done before today? I would wager good
20:55money it is the heft test, the weighing of two in your hands, because almost nobody does it, and it
21:01is
21:02the best one of all. And tell me your county, and where you do your shopping, because the produce runs
21:08different from one part of the country to the next, and I do like to map it out by where
21:13you all write
21:14from. I read every one of them. Next time, we stay with the sour fruit, and I will show you
21:20how to
21:21pick a sweet, juicy lime. Five things to look for, because a lime hides its ripeness in ways that would
21:28surprise you, and the store fools you on a lime even worse than it does on a lemon. If you
21:34have ever
21:35brought home a bag of hard green limes that gave you nothing, that one is for you. A lemon tells
21:42you
21:42everything about itself before you ever cut it, if you only know how to ask with your hands.
21:48My grandmother read a whole fruit stand by touch, and never once in her long life brought home a dry
21:54one. And that knowing is not lost. It is only waiting to be picked back up by anyone willing to
22:01slow down and learn it. The man in a hurry pays twice. The patient hand pays once. The kitchen that
22:09never wants for juice is the kitchen that knows how to choose. The people who built this country with
22:15their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
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