Got Mikan?

What is the quintessential image of Japan at the New Year holiday?
It is of someone warming their legs in a kotatsu, sipping green tea, and eating a mikanwhile reading their New Year greeting cards.

Mikan are the tangerine-like citrus fruits that come into season right around now. They come in various sizes and types, but basically they are easy to peel--like a banana--and just sweet enough that you want to eat more than one at a sitting. Eating this harmless fruit used to be a hurdle that an intended bride was expected to leap over with grace.

Yes. The way a mikan was consumed was a potential deal breaker.

Pull off the skin in random patches? You lose.

Suck the fruit out of each section of membrane and leave the membranes in a disgusting pile on the plate? Tasty, but you'll get voted off the marriage market.

What you need to do is (Plan A) score the fruit in six sections down longitudinal lines, peel back the skin starting from the top--but leave each section connected at the bottom--and open it like a lotus flower. Section the fruit in half, quarters, then individual sections so that the fruit also spreads like lotus petals. Eat the sections slowly, one by one, leaving any pith or seeds or unwanted membranes discreetly in the middle. When you are done, fold over the orange skin and hide the mess in a neat little package.

That is accepted mikan etiquette.

But...

If you want to be a star, look at the mikan as if it were a globe, score a single line around where the equator would be, loosen the top and bottom hemispheres with your thumb, then twist and separate two neat cup-shaped halves of the mikan skin. Pick out the fruit, eat it section by section, dropping the unwanted parts into one of the mikan cups. When you are done, put it back together, almost as good as new.