Slices of lemon are served as a garnish on fish or meat or with iced or hot tea, to be squeezed for the flavorful juice. In Colombia, lemon soup is made by adding slices of lemon to dry bread roll that has been sautéed in shortening until soft and then sieved. Sugar and a cup of wine are added and the mixture brought to a boil, and then served.
Lemon juice, fresh, canned, concentrated and frozen, or dehydrated and powdered, is primarily used for lemonade, in carbonated beverages, or other drinks. It is also used for making pies and tarts, as a flavoring for cakes, cookies, cake icings, puddings, sherbet, confectionery, preserves and pharmaceutical products. A few drops of lemon juice, added to cream before whipping, gives stability to the whipped cream.
Lemon peel can be candied at home and is preserved in brine and supplied to manufacturers of confectionery and baked goods. It is the source of lemon oil, pectin and citric acid. Lemon oil, often with terpenes and sesquiterpenes removed, is added to frozen or otherwise processed lemon juice to enrich the flavor. It is much employed as a flavoring for hard candies.
Other Uses
Lemon juice is valued in the home as a stain remover, and a slice of lemon dipped in salt can be used to clean copper-bottomed cooking pots. Lemon juice has been used for bleaching freckles and is incorporated into some facial cleansing creams.
Lemon peel oil is much used in furniture polishes, detergents, soaps and shampoos. It is important in perfume blending and especially in colognes.
Petitgrain oil (up to 50% citral), is distilled from the leaves, twigs and immature fruits of the lemon tree in West Africa, North Africa and Italy. With terpenes removed, it is greatly prized in colognes and floral perfumes.
Lemon peel, dehydrated, is marketed as cattlefeed.
Lemonade, when applied to potted plants, has been found to keep their flowers fresh longer than normal. But it cannot be used on chrysanthemums without turning their leaves brown.
Wood: The wood is fine-grained, compact, and easy to work. In Mexico, it is carved into chessmen, toys, small spoons, and other articles.
Medicinal Uses: Lemon juice is widely known as a diuretic, antiscorbutic, astringent, and febrifuge. In Italy, the sweetened juice is given to relieve gingivitis, stomatitis, and inflammation of the tongue. Lemon juice in hot water has been widely advocated as a daily laxative and preventive of the common cold, but daily doses have been found to erode the enamel of the teeth. Prolonged use will reduce the teeth to the level of the gums. Lemon juice and honey, or lemon juice with salt or ginger, is taken when needed as a cold remedy. It was the juice of the Mediterranean sweet lemon, not the lime, that was carried aboard British sailing ships of the 18th Century to prevent scurvy, though the sailors became known as "limeys".
Oil expressed from lemon seeds is employed medicinally. The root decoction is taken as a treatment for fever in Cuba; for gonorrhea in West Africa. An infusion of the bark or of the peel of the fruit is given to relieve colic.
Answered by Prashant
at
6:48 PM on September 15, 2008