Helen, Help Me: Juice That’s Worth the Squeeze

My partner and I moved in together recently, and she was horrified to learn that I cook with bottled citrus juice—you know, the little plastic lemons and limes that are on the grocery shelf near the drink mixers. They’re easy and convenient, and I don’t see what all the fuss is about, when it’s all going to get mixed in with other flavors anyway. I’ve been cooking and making cocktails for her for years, and I’m pretty sure she never even noticed until we started sharing a fridge. Am I missing out on something huge? Is my partner just a snob?—K.P., Manhattan

The law of the home kitchen is thus: if it works for you, it works for you. Are you happy with your process, happy with your outcomes? Terrific—carry on with your chubby little juice grenades and tell your partner that love means never criticizing someone’s convenience foods. But, I wonder, are you at all interested in the possibility of being happier? Your partner may indeed be a snob, but she’s also got a point: your citrus squeezies have been heat-treated and acid-adjusted within an inch of their lives, in the name of shelf stability, and what’s left bears only the faintest, saddest relation to the bright, floral zing of its freshly squeezed counterpart. What you’re using is, to put a point on it, cooked, not fresh, juice.

This isn’t to say that shelf-stable citrus juice is entirely without value: since it’s cooked already, it is—true to your pre-cohabitation experiences!—largely indistinguishable from fresh when cooked into certain dishes, like complex curries or long-braised meats, in which time and spices help enliven its flat, sour flavor. But, in those cases, you could get pretty much the same effect from swapping in a bit of vinegar. A friend of mine swears by ReaLemon-brand lemon juice for his homemade aioli, but once, in a pinch, he made a version with no-name white vinegar instead, and I swear I couldn’t taste a difference under all that garlic. (The general antipathy to bottled citrus falls into the same category as serious cooks’ dislike of jarred, minced garlic—sometimes known as “jarlic”—which undergoes life-lengthening chemical processes similar to those that your preferred juices do, rendering it both cooked and pickled, so it delivers only the faintest whisper of allium bite.)

As for using bottled citrus juice raw—in cocktails, in salad dressings, or sprinkled on top of some nice grilled fish or roasted veggies—well, I can’t say I endorse it. I don’t think of myself as an ingredients snob; indeed, I’ve been known to top a shepherd’s pie with instant mashed potatoes a time or two. But maybe you’ve helped me find my limit. If you’re using the bottled stuff right out there in the open, without the camouflaging benefits of heat, then it’s a wonder that your partner didn’t notice sooner. The one decent substitute in that regard might be cold-pressed juices—the big, refrigerated bottles of, for instance, Persian-lime juice and Eureka-lemon juice from the bartender-founded mixer brand Twisted Alchemy. These retain a striking amount of verve and complexity, and taste fresh enough to use raw. But, other than that, just buy some lemons and limes, my friend! Keep them in the crisper drawer! Zest them! Spritz them! Love them! You’ll probably want a nice juice squeezer, too—I love the Fluicer, a funky little contraption that gets every last bit of liquid out of a halved lime or lemon (the lemon-size one works for both) and takes up nearly no space at all in your kitchen junk drawer. Ask your partner to buy it, as a gift to you both.

What’s the secret to an actually good birthday dinner at a restaurant?—A.B., Brooklyn

A round table, slightly overcrowded. Family-style ordering. No presents. Lots of cocktails. Fill dead air with silly toasts. One check, paid discreetly. Call about the cake ahead of time. ♦

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