This essay was the third of three essays we did for the “Writing Skills Workshop” that I took as part of the Creative Writing Certificate program at the Berkeley Extension. An example of a compare and contrast essay, it was fun to research and also fun to write. I hope anyone who stumbles upon it smiles a bit and also ponders what else we take for granted is not as straightforward as we thought.
While in a friendly disagreement at a local brewery with a friend, I found my back against a rhetorical wall, and it looked like I would be paying for his next beer. Then I remembered my go-to argument escape hatch. I drained my glass, leaned forward, and said, “You are comparing apples to oranges.”
I knew my gambit would not work when he smiled, finished his beer, and also leaned across the wooden table to declare, “What does that even mean? You can’t prove your point with facts or even opinions. Apples and oranges? They are both fruit, grow on trees, and make tasty juice. They are very similar, and so is my comparison, and therefore, my friend, you are wrong, and this is your round.”
I started to protest but realized that unless I split hairs, he hit the nail on the head. I have used that idiom as shorthand for “you are comparing two very different things” for most of my life. And yet, I’ve never sat down and thought about how different or similar these two tasty treats actually are.
The most obvious similarity is how they are both sweet fruits from trees. The obvious difference is the color and nature of their skin. But the saying is not, “you are comparing the color of apples to the color of oranges.”
If we look beyond the outside color, not judging the book by its cover, things get complicated. Both are considered a fruit because they are seed-bearing objects formed from the ovary of flowers. They protect seeds, offer nourishment when the fruit falls to the ground, and attract animals to eat them to “deposit” seeds at a distance.
Not one to let sleeping dogs lie, I went on a bit of a scientific wild goose chase and learned an orange is considered a botanical berry because it comes from a single ovary in a flower, while an apple is a pome because it grows from multiple parts of the flower, not just the ovary. And that is why oranges are simpler, with no core and separate segments. Apples have a core, small connected segments that hold the seeds, a big solid protective layer, then a thin skin.
Oranges have those big segments made of thin skin that hold together the juice-containing sacs called vesicles. Apples have vesicles that contain their juice, but they can only be seen with a microscope. The consistency of the edible bits is the most noticeable difference beneath the skin.
If you peel the onion a bit more, you may think that different consistency also results in a difference in how much juice each produces. If so, you would be barking up the wrong tree. On average, apple juice is 88% water, 9% sugar, and 3% other carbohydrates. Orange juice is also 88% water, 8% sugar, and 2% other carbs. That is pretty close. If someone asked me, I’d say that orange juice is more acidic, but to add insult to injury, the average pH for orange juice is 3.5 and 3.4 for apples. Yet they taste completely different, which comes down to all sorts of compounds in pulpy bits and the relative mixture of the three sugars found in fruits; sucrose, fructose, and glucose. Then again, the juices do look very different, with orange juice being opaque yellow-orange and apple juice being that wonderful clear yellow-brown when filtered.
Where I find the most significant differentiation is the sensory experience of eating each fruit. Pick up an apple and notice how shiny it is. Run your thumb across the smooth skin and push down a bit and feel how solid and firm it is. Hold it up to your nose, and you only get a faint odor. Then, grasping it firmly, take a bite. Hear the satisfying crunch as the juice coats your mouth, and the wonderful, fresh smell hits your nose. Each bite delivers another crunch and another burst of juice and that sweet and tart flavor that lingers a bit and calls for another sample.
Now, pick up an orange and rub that same thumb across the skin. It is soft and bumpy, and when you press on it, the skin pushes in, releasing visible geysers of fragrant oil that hit your nose from feet away. And as much as that olfactory assault makes your mouth water, you can’t take a bite yet. You have to remove the peel, getting more of that wonderful smell and hearing that satisfying ripping sound as you pull the skin away and separate the segments. Now you can place the segment in your mouth. Biting down, making the fluid-filled sacs explode, releasing the sweet juice.
Eating both an apple and an orange can be a sensual experience, far different than eating bread or meat or a lowly green vegetable. Both deliver for all the senses; bright color, pleasing fragrance, tantalizing texture, satisfying crunch or rip, and sweet taste, but in very different ways.
Which leads to how apples and oranges have been treated in western European tradition. The apple is often used to represent the unnamed forbidden fruit that grew on the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Since eating an apple can be a sensual experience, it’s no surprise that Christian art often portrays the treat being offered by the serpent as a ripe red apple dangling from a verdant green bough.
The most common tradition around the orange is as a gift. Since they didn’t grow in the colder parts of Europe, citrus fruit had to be imported and was, therefore, rare and expensive. The bright orange color was also unique and reminded some people of gold. So the tradition began of gifting an orange, especially in a Christmas stocking. On top of its rarity, color, and unusually sweet taste, an orange can be segmented and shared, the perfect treat for the season of giving.
When you peel away the skin, you find that apples and oranges do have a lot in common. Where you land on the similar-to-different scale may have more with which side of an argument you are on and if being there being different supports your argument or not.
So why do we use the phrase? It turns out it comes from a misquote from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew:
TRANIO, as Lucentio: Among them know you one Vincentio?
MERCHANT: I know him not, but I have heard of him: A merchant of incomparable wealth.
TRANIO, as Lucentio: He is my father, sir, and sooth to say, In count’nance somewhat doth resemble you.
BIONDELLO, aside: As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all one.
An oyster? Now that fruit of the sea is far more different from an apple than an orange. Maybe next time I find myself up a rhetorical creek without a paddle, I’ll pull out The Bard’s turn of phrase as a red herring and let the apple and the orange stay in the same fruit basket where they belong.
Eric's Word Doodles 