The Lime That Failed 
The tasty Key lime has been replaced by a fruit 
more suitable to the needs of mass-scale agriculture 
by Raymond Sokolov 
Some people go to Key West for 
the fishing. Others are attracted by 
the sunsets in this southernmost 
American town. Preservationists like 
to stroll among the island’s old homes, 
visiting the Hemingway mansion or 
admiring the double elephant folios 
in the handsomely renovated place 
where Audubon sojourned while spy- 
ing on the birds of the Keys and the 
Dry Tortugas. Many picturesque bars 
beckon those in search of a bibulous 
vacation, and in Key West’s generally 
permissive atmosphere, gay people 
have established a discreet niche. My- 
self, I drove down from Miami, 160 
miles on a highway that arches over 
the water from key to key, impelled 
by a lifelong desire to taste an au- 
thentic Key lime pie. 
As I crossed the last bridge, from 
Stock Island onto Key West, I as- 
sumed I was only minutes from en- 
joying a rich slice of Florida’s most 
famous regional specialty. But after 
a week of stuffing down piece after 
piece of one so-called Key lime pie 
after another, intermitted by various 
limeades and lime daiquiris sup- 
posedly based on the juice of the small, 
thin-skinned, legendarily sour and aro- 
matic fruit known as Citrus auran- 
tifolia, 1 came to realize that probably 
none of these pies or potions contained 
a single drop of freshly squeezed Key 
lime juice. 
Indeed, , after some serious inquiry 
among local experts, I am now morally 
certain that virtually all “Key lime” 
pies and drinks not prepared in private 
homes in the Keys are actually made 
with the juice of the Tahiti (or Persian 
or Bearss) lime, which is not a true 
lime at all. This hybrid of mysterious 
origin is the “lime” sold in supermar- 
kets all over the country. Grown pri- 
marily in southern Florida and eastern 
Mexico, it is a satisfactory fruit, but 
it is not at all the equal of its cousin, 
C. aurantifolia (a.k.a. Key lime, Mexi- 
can lime, or West Indian lime). 
Roughly twice as large as the Key 
lime, the Tahiti has a thick skin and 
looks enough like a small lemon, right 
down to its pointy end, that it is mar- 
keted while its rind is still an immature 
green. At maturity, Tahitis (and Key 
limes) turn yellow, and it would be 
easy for a consumer to confuse Tahitis 
and lemons. No one, however, would 
make this mistake with mature yellow 
Key limes, which are almost perfectly 
spherical. Sliced open, both varieties 
of lime are yellow green inside, but 
Tahitis are seedless, while most Keys 
have several seeds. Thin-skinned Keys 
can be easily juiced by pressing them 
between the thumb and forefinger. 
And, most important of all, the juice 
of the Key lime tastes decisively dif- 
ferent from the juice of the Tahiti. 
It is sourer and more complex. In other 
words, Key lime juice has more per- 
sonality. 
I tested this in a comparative tast- 
ing. I also have finally managed to 
taste a real Key lime pie. And I must 
insist that, contrary to the opinion of 
innumerable cookbook authors who 
claim that “regular” lime juice is a 
completely adequate substitute, the 
real thing is far tangier and more in- 
teresting than “Key lime” pies that 
are made with Tahiti juice. The peel, 
often grated into pie fillings, may also 
play a role, as Key limes contain a 
distinctive essential oil in their peels, 
which is extracted industrially for cos- 
metics and for commercial flavoring. 
You can smell the delicious aroma 
easily if you hold the fruit to your nose. 
It does not take a particularly edu- 
cated nose or palate to appreciate the 
superiority and the greater sophisti- 
cation of the Key lime. The problem 
is to find a Key lime. 
In Key West, I made the rounds 
of local markets and fancy fruiterers 
in vain. Restaurants and drink stands 
used either Tahitis or a bottled juice 
sold in souvenir stands. This dull bev- 
erage, suspiciously labeled “real lime” 
juice, may, of course, be a chemically 
stabilized juice of real Key limes, but 
I doubt it. In any case, it is obviously 
not fresh juice, and anyone who has 
ever tasted freshly squeezed orange 
juice against juice that has been frozen 
or canned or merely stored in the re- 
frigerator will know that the flavor 
of citrus juice degrades rapidly. 
Far and away the strongest argu- 
ment against the likelihood of any 
commercial American Key lime prod- 
uct being made from Key limes is 
that there is no regular commercial 
source of Key limes in the Florida 
Keys or anywhere else in the country. 
According to reliable authority, the 
last remaining sizable grove of trees 
is located at Islamorada, about mid- 
way between Miami and Key West, 
in the backyard of a restaurateur who 
freezes the juice he produces and uses 
it entirely for his own restaurant. 
The persistent gastroethnographer 
can, nevertheless, lay his hands on 
fresh Key limes in the Florida Keys. 
But it helps if you know a Conch. 
Conchs are indigenous residents of the 
Keys (nicknamed after a shellfish 
abundant in local waters). Some 
Conchs have thorny little Key lime 
trees in their backyards. I located a 
luxuriant fruit-bearing tree on the 
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