When I think about global warming, I rarely think about lemons.
Not until recently..
That's when I saw American lemons for sale for $A4.99 a kilogram at the Fyshwick Fresh Food Markets in Canberra.
Canberra, as every good student of geography knows, is the capital of Australia.
And, as even poor geography students know, there is a very large expanse of water called the Pacific Ocean between us and them.
So how much of a global footprint is involved is getting a batch of US lemons halfway across the world?
I'm guessing they did not get individually stuffed in bottles and washed up on our beaches on the tide. They probably came in a ship-— in which case the Fyshwick Fresh Food market has a bit of a hide. Well, they were hardly just picked from the tree.
Perhaps they arrived by plane. In that instance, I rest my case on the issue of a bloody great big carbon footprint.
What really irks me is that we grow plenty of lemons in Australia. Real lemon-coloured ones we squeeze on our fish — not just bad cars and bad politicans.
It would be different if the market was importing something we could not grow in Australia.
But our country is so big and diverse, I think we grow what most of our consumers desire — everything from bananas in tropical Queensland to apples and pears in temperate Tasmania, all manner of stonefruit and grapes and oranges and, yes, lemons.
The citrus industry has no doubt taken off since my first experience with lemons in the early 1960s.
I was just a nipper then growing up in Launceston, Tassie, and we had a lemon tree in our back yard in Canning Street.
A few blocks away we also had a local corner shop owned and run by a hard-working Greek Austtralian called Jimmy Tsinoglou.
My sisters and I made a few bob picking those lemons and selling them to Jimmy
Jimmy expanded over the years, later became a big supermarket owner and, later still, Launceston's mayor from 1987 to 89.
His path to financial success and local fame may have had something to do with his work ethic and his determination to keep his shops open all hours.
I like to think though (I know you can't see me at this exact moment but you need to imagine me: standing up straight, beaming with pride and clearing my throat), our humble lemons helped him on his way.
So imagine how I felt when I saw these Yank lemons at my local market. I felt that a part of my personal history had been, well ( I don't mean to be melodramatic but I am feeling very emotional) violated.
I could not believe it — and I was even more flabbergasted when I turned the corner and saw a batch of Australian lemons $A1 a kilogram cheaper!
Which made me think: why would anyone bother with the more expensive American variety?
Are American lemons juicier? A tad more bitter? What?
The only thing I can think of is that American president Barrack Obama had planned to visit Canberra in March.l
Do you think the Fresh Food Markets have got the lemons in just for him? We wouldn't want to spoil his nice piece of barramundi, would we?
If so, I hope they keep well. He has now decided not to come until June.
I am pretty sure than American lemons were not in my mind when I invented The Daily Lemonsuck newspaper in my latest satirical novel, Major BS: A Top Secret Mission. Read the first chapter free online.