Compare prices for fresh lemons across Edmonton retailers.
Lemons are non-climacteric: they do not ripen, sweeten, or grow juicier after they are picked, so the fruit in the bin is as good as it will ever be and choosing well is the entire task. Pick lemons that are firm with only the slightest give and feel heavy for their size — heft is the single best clue to juiciness, because a light lemon is one that has dried out inside — and that wear a fine-grained, glossy skin. Smooth, thin-skinned fruit yields more juice than a thick, coarse, deeply pitted lemon, which hides more white pith and less flesh. The colour should be a bright, even yellow; a faint green cast simply marks a very fresh, slightly more acidic fruit rather than a defect, so judge by firmness and weight first, and pass over any lemon with dull brown patches, soft spots, or a wrinkled, shrivelled rind.
Because a lemon does not improve on the counter, one is ready to use the moment you buy it, and the only real decision is how long you need it to keep. For a lemon you will use in the next day or two, a bowl at room temperature is fine and makes the fruit slightly easier to juice. To have lemons on hand through the week and beyond, refrigerate them: loose in the crisper they hold one to two weeks, and sealed in a bag or container so they cannot dry out they keep for three to four weeks, far longer than at room temperature. To get the most juice from a cold lemon, roll it firmly under your palm or let it come up to room temperature before squeezing.
A lemon is past its prime when the skin wrinkles and the fruit feels light, spongy, or soft, all of which mean it has dried out within, or when sunken brown patches, weeping, or white, green, or blue mould appear; a mouldy lemon should be thrown out rather than cut around, since the rot runs through the rind. A lemon that has gone only slightly soft but still smells clean and citrusy is fine for juicing even when it is past slicing. In an Edmonton winter, treat lemons as the cold-sensitive imported fruit they are: a lemon left in a sub-zero vehicle will freeze and thaw into a dry, bitter, collapsed fruit, so carry them indoors promptly, and over very long cold storage watch for the small sunken pits and brown staining of chilling injury, which shortens their life.
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