The gift had been sitting in a forgotten corner of the refrigerator for two and half years.
And no, this wasn’t a case of poor kitchen hygeine. The refrigerator had been cleaned out several times since that long-ago Christmas. Countless containers of moldering leftovers had come and gone.
Somehow we’d always spared this pretty little glass jar, despite the fact that it was filled with worrisome yellow lumps afloat in a reddish slurry.
But now its moment had arrived. We were planning to make a Moroccan tagine, a traditional stew slow-cooked in a conical earthenware vessel, and we needed preserved lemons, one of the signature flavors of the dish. Moroccans call them l’hamd marakad, which means, literally, “sleeping lemons.”
“Do you think they’re still okay?” I asked Shana.
She shrugged.
“They might be okay,” I said. “I mean, I hope they are. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Shana gave me a look.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll try one. If I die, we’ll know they were bad.”
I undid the metal clasp and pried the jar open. The seal resisted for a moment. The rubber gasket was doing its job.
“That’s a good sign, no?” I said.
When the lid finally gave, I was breathing through my mouth, the way you do when you’re gathering courage for the sniff test on some leftover chicken.
Then I inhaled.
The initial aroma was sharp and spicy: a blast from the wet cinnamon sticks floating near the top. There were hints of cardamom, too, a subtle sweet scent I always associate with Froot Loops breakfast cereal — don’t ask me why.
Then, beneath the spices, the unmistakeable tang of lemon, but muted by brine, as if I were smelling a whole, uncut lemon at the edge of the sea.
“Smells pretty good,” I said, digging into the jar with a spoon.
I fished out a lemon quarter and laid it on the cutting board, autopsy-style, the better to admire the nearly translucent rind with its glob of stringy pulp.
Some people like to use the pulp, which is more pungent and salty than the rind, but most cooks set it aside. I scooped away the pulp, then carefully flattened the rind with the back of my spoon.
I was stalling.
“Well, here goes,” I said, cutting a small piece of it with the edge of the spoon.
A glass of water was at the ready, just in case…
But it was delicious! The texture was strange, perhaps a bit on the slimy side, but the flavor was splendid: salty, yes; lemony, yes; but hushed, if that’s a word you can use to describe a taste. Only very slightly bitter. And deep, as if the preserved lemon were as translucent to the tongue as it was to the eye.
“It’s good!” I cried. “Better than good. We will have our tagine, and it will be delicious!”
Preserved lemons have been a staple in the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years, although back at the beginning of the Common Era, the fruit may have been a citron, which is thought to be the ancestor of the modern lemon.
Thousands of years before the advent of refrigeration, the problem of preserving an overabundant harvest was solved with salt. The recipe for preserving lemons calls simply for a clean vessel; lemons; and lots and lots of salt, which is packed into slits in the fruit. The vessel is filled to the top with more lemon juice, and then covered and left alone in a shaded place, the only maintenance being an occasional turn of the jar to stir the contents.
After a month, the fruit has essentially fermented, but all of the harmful strains of bacteria have been destroyed by the extremely high salt content.
Properly prepared and stored, preserved lemons can last a long time — months and months in the pantry, or, as we discovered, practically indefinitely in a refrigerator.
Added to a slowly braised chicken stew, along with some crushed green olives and perhaps some fresh chopped cilantro, the skin of a preserved lemon can transform a humble dish into something exotic and wonderful, a taste of North Africa in a Perry County kitchen.
A small jar of them, spiced up with some cinnamon sticks, a few cardamom pods, a spoonful of whole peppercorns, and a bay leaf, can make a brilliant holiday gift.
It’ll last forever. Long enough, even, for the lucky recipient to get around to using it!
