Persnickety Lemons

Can you hear that tired old trope, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” without rolling your eyes? The lemonade stand had gone the way of the dodo even when I was a child, but lemons were still apocryphally potent. Per the Brady Bunch, the juice was alleged to erase freckles. In the 70s, we used it to highlight our hair while we baked precancerously in the sun. It didn’t work, but that never stopped us from trying.

Lemons have a unique place in popular culture. They’re in everything from furniture polish to gelato. “Lemon yellow” is superior to the more pedestrian and bourgeois “yellow.” Oh, and if you’re trying to cut down on sodium, someone will tell you to substitute lemon juice for salt. They always do. People seem to think that acidity and salinity are the same thing.

Have you read any of the stuff about those ubiquitous lemon slices in restaurants? Apparently many restaurants don’t wash them enough, thus when sliced, the bacteria on the surface go into the juicy parts. According to this theory, squeezing that wedge into your refreshing beverage adds all sorts of microbial extras. I’m not sure I believe it, but what’s a blog for if not to propagate urban myths?

Be that as it may, I like lemons. They taste good. They’re a nice, friendly color. Lemons are extremely useful little things. They may not remove freckles or give you blonde hair, but if you want to know if you’ve got any nicks or cuts on your hands, squeeze a lemon. You should always have one handy, if only for that purpose.