Grapefruit

A plant, Citrus paradisi, probably originating in the West Indies, but its origin is obscure. Some sources say the Spanish introduced grapefruit to the West Indies. We know for certain that the English called grapefruit "shaddock" for many years, confusing it with another fruit taken from the East Indies to Barbados by a Captain Shaddock in 1693. In the 18th century, merchant ships are said to have used shaddock for ballast and for cleaning their decks. By 1820, the French botanist, the Chevalier de Tussac, wrote that the fruit was no larger than a good orange, borne in bunches like grapes and designated by the English in Jamaica as "Forbidden Fruit" or "smaller shaddock." Indisputably, this was a grapefruit, but botanists cannot decide whether it was a mutation of the pomelo or a cross between it and an orange.

Philippe Odet, a former surgeon of Napoleon's army, planted some in Florida about the same time the fruit was first recorded in the West Indies. Not only was this the start of Florida's commercial grapefruit industry, but these trees also became the parent trees for all grapefruit varieties grown today. Pink grapefruit was developed mainly in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The main varieties are Pink Marsh, also called Thompson and Ruby, which has the distinction of being the first citrus fruit ever patented. Although some food historians attribute the grapefruit's name to the grape-like clusters in which it grows, others insist that it originated with an early recorder of horticultural finds in the West Indies who likened the grapefruit's taste to that of a grape.

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