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"Meyer lemons" are advertised as a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. The flavor is basically what you'd expect from that cross.

Is it reasonable to use them as direct substitutes? What are the important differences to keep in mind when substituting one for the other? How will those differences affect the recipe?

Cascabel
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WBT
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  • Maybe it'd be more useful to just ask how the flavor differs, and then you can make up your own mind about what dishes sound good with each? – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 01:11
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    @Jefromi The flavor is basically what you'd expect for a lemon crossed with a mandarin orange. Flavor is not the only difference, though; pH or some compounds etc. might lead to different reactions and interactions with other foods. I thought about adding the tag molecular-gastronomy, but decided the question wasn't specifically enough in that field to do so. – WBT Feb 25 '16 at 03:11
  • I'm not asking what the difference (flavor or otherwise) is. I was suggesting that you ask that instead of what you asked, because I thought it'd answer your question and be a lot more answerable. The pros and cons are pretty much just going to be that the difference is a good idea sometimes and a bad idea sometimes, I assume. – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 03:16
  • I don't want to ask about the flavor differences between the raw ingredients, because I already know that or can find out directly without having to deal with the issue that flavors are not all that well communicated in English. And yes, I presume that the difference will sometimes be a good idea (but **when/in what situations is that**) and sometimes a bad idea (again, **when/in what situations?**). – WBT Feb 25 '16 at 05:16
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    Do you consider replacing lemons with meyer lemons and drastically reducing the sugar to be a direct substitute? – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 11:20
  • I don't understand your question at all. You say you know what the flavor difference is. Then it is obvious that it is a good idea to substitute if you don't mind your dish tasting differently and it is a bad idea if you want the dish to taste the same. What other criteria are you expecting to hear? – rumtscho Feb 25 '16 at 11:44
  • @Jefromi if you drastically reduce the sugar, it's not a direct substitute. An answer to this question might be "if you use meyer lemons instead of regular lemons, you have to drastically reduce the sugar." That would be novel information to me. – WBT Feb 25 '16 at 14:21
  • @rumtscho knowing the flavor difference is not enough to answer this question or necessarily predict the effects of how that would change interactions with other ingredients, or attributes other than flavor. Also, even if one can predict that a flavor would be "different" that doesn't mean one can predict if it would be an improvement/better blend or not. Your comment seems a little like going over to UX.SE and implying that just because someone knows the difference between the appearances of the colors red & green, it's "obvious" when the use of each is appropriate in a user interface design. – WBT Feb 25 '16 at 14:26
  • @WBT No, she's not saying it's obvious whether it's good, she's saying it's obvious that it's subjective whether it's good. I don't think people on UX would be any more excited about debating whether your logo should be red or green than we are about debating whether meyer lemon custard sounds better than lemon custard. – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 16:47
  • Hi WBT! I wonder if you might get more of the answers you need if you add your first comment to Jefromi into your question, especially the part about reactions and interactions with other food. When I read that it felt like I got a better understanding of what you re hoping to learn. Also, comments don't hang around, so a more detailed question might help future users. Please forgive me if it sounds like I'm trying to interfere with your question, or tell you how to write it. That's definitely not my intention! – Sue Saddest Farewell TGO GL Feb 25 '16 at 18:51
  • Hi @Sue or others, if you think there is material in the comment that should be edited in to the question in a way that makes it clearer for people on this site, please go for it in a suggested edit; I'll edit/rollback if need be. Jefromi: There are some ways in which certain uses of red/green are objectively better or worse and/or interact with certain things one might not have considered (e.g. colorblindness or places like China where some of the colors' cultural associations are opposite here.) – WBT Feb 26 '16 at 02:41
  • Thanks WBT. I had wanted to try to make an edit without hijacking your question! Since you brought it up though, I just put through a suggested edit. If you don't like it, please fix or rollback. If it makes sense to you, then maybe the comments can get cleaned up, as some are out of place since my edit. I hope I've helped. I'd like to learn something too! – Sue Saddest Farewell TGO GL Feb 26 '16 at 04:51
  • Thanks for checking, @Sue. I think the edits might cover the first four comments, but not the part getting into the analogy with red & green. – WBT Feb 26 '16 at 05:10
  • I disagree with the closing of this question as "primarily opinion-based" and refer to existing answers that are not "oh, it's just personal preference" but instead identify objective facts about differences between the fruits. The follow-on question, "should I used Meyer lemons as a direct substitute for regular lemons," might be opinion based because each person can weigh the pros and cons differently. However, in order to even make an informed opinion, one needs to know the pros and cons, and that's what this question is asking for. – WBT Feb 26 '16 at 16:36
  • Meta discussion [here](http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2208/why-was-this-ingredient-subsitution-question-closed). – WBT Feb 29 '16 at 00:14
  • If this edited version is okay with you (possibly with a little tweaking) I can archive all this in a chat and just leave the links to it and meta; it's not anything future readers need to worry too much about. – Cascabel Feb 29 '16 at 17:07
  • @Jefromi The original 2nd para. was trying to make the question more objective than "they taste different" & that's largely why I declined the suggestion to focus exclusively on that flavor difference. The original 3rd para. was trying to avoid the criticism (leveled anyway) that it's hard and not useful to try to make blanket statements, especially because lemon is used in a wide variety of settings for different reasons, probably at least one setting for each identifiable attribute of the fruit. If those are useful points to re-include, maybe someone can figure out an acceptable way how. – WBT Feb 29 '16 at 20:52
  • If you think it'd be helpful for you to have numbers for pH and fructose concentration, feel free to edit them back in as examples of differences. But I suspect that'll be hard data to come by, while sweetness and sourness are pretty commonly known even if somewhat less objective, so it seems more likely useful to just ask about differences in general. (i.e. this is why I mostly removed the second paragraph - I think the subjectivity problem was "pros and cons", not the core question itself.) – Cascabel Feb 29 '16 at 20:55
  • As for the third paragraph, I'm just not sure how necessary it is: if it depends on context, people can say so. But again, if you want something of that in the question, go for it - I might try more like "it's fine if it depends on the type of recipe" though, rather than trying to dictate the form of an answer. – Cascabel Feb 29 '16 at 21:05

3 Answers3

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Lemons are quite sour, while Meyer lemons are much sweeter and less acidic. If you substitute directly, it'll have a dramatic effect.

For example, suppose you start out with a dessert made with lemons that has enough sugar added (or little enough lemon juice) to make it the right sweet/sour balance for you. If you replace the lemon with Meyer lemon, it'll be way more toward the sweet side, and won't have the sourness to counteract it anymore. So unless you want that big change, you'd probably want to reduce the sugar and/or increase the Meyer lemon; exactly how you decide to do that would depend on the dessert.

If you substitute in the other direction, Meyer lemon to lemon, you'd likely have to reduce the lemon and/or add a bunch of sugar to keep it from tasting more sour.

Either direction, I don't think it really seems like a good direct substitution. It's a big change, so whether it's a good idea totally depends on whether the original recipe suited your preferences and whether you're okay with a broad range of sweet/sour or have something more specific in mind.

The only things where a direct substitution seems like a good idea to me are things where you're only using the zest. At that point citrus is pretty much all interchangeable, just a different flavor.

Cascabel
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6

When I've used Meyer lemons I haven't noticed Mandarin orange flavors.

Meyer lemons are much sweeter and less sour than normal lemons. I use them in recipes that strongly feature lemon fruit, not just juice.

For example, shaker lemon pies are made with thin slices of whole lemons, including the peel. Regular lemons are overwhelming so I use Meyers.

On the other hand, I wouldn't use Meyers in recipes where lemon juice is used for its acid. For example as a condiment in a lentil soup.

Sobachatina
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    It seems like you're kind of dancing around an actual answer that there just aren't actually any times you can make a direct substitution. If you change lemon to Meyer, you'd have to reduce sugar or add acid, and if you change Meyer to lemon you'd have to add a ton of sugar to keep it from being too sour. (but maybe I'm putting words in your mouth there; that was my first impression when I saw the question) – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 10:51
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    @Jefromi This seems like a decent answer to the question, +1. Your comments about having to reduce sugar or add acid seem like they also could be part of a good answer. – WBT Feb 25 '16 at 14:29
  • I agree that Meyer lemons don't have any orange-like component to their flavor; they're definitely lemons, and they taste like lemons. I disagree, however, about the "much sweeter and less sour" part. Yes, they're slightly sweeter and slightly less acidic than a regular lemon, but the difference isn't really enough to make much of a difference. With a lemon-based recipe (or really, any fruit-based recipe), you're always gonna have to adjust the sugar in your recipe, because the fruit will differ in ripeness, amount of sun it got, etc. etc. – Marti Feb 29 '16 at 19:05
  • @Marti Hm, we definitely haven't been eating the same (meyer) lemons. The ones I've had were very noticeably less acidic, not just slightly. Not sure which of our experiences is more common; for what it's worth, Wikipedia says "sweeter, less acidic flavor". – Cascabel Feb 29 '16 at 19:24
  • @Jefromi: the difference might be in the normal lemons we've eaten: I grew up in southern California with a so-called "dwarf" lemon tree that was taller than the house. Let's just say, we never purchased lemons. :) – Marti Feb 29 '16 at 19:35
  • You're exaggerating a bit, given a nice source of Meyer lemons I don't hesitate to use them in everything. Maybe I'm a bit more extravagant in their use, quantity-wise, but that's because they're good, not because I find their acidity inadequate –  Dec 19 '18 at 00:03
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They are harder to juice than regular lemons, at least with reamers or unaided, because the skin breaks apart much more easily (like a plump mandarin orange).

WBT
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    I don't know why you were downvoted ... that sounds like a reasonable 'con' to me. This wouldn't be a problem for a squeeze-style juicers, but would be for a reamer. – Joe Feb 25 '16 at 17:56
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    @Joe I think it's mostly just that it doesn't have any bearing on the resulting food. It's a little harder to get juice, but you'll get juice anyway. – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 18:43
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    @Jefromi : yeah, but if something took longer to process or made a mess while doing so, I'd consider that to be a huge 'con' when considering substitutions. – Joe Feb 25 '16 at 19:41
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    @Joe Sure, makes sense. I just don't think it's that big a deal, more on the scale of saying large potatoes are a bad substitute for giant potatoes when making mashed potatoes, because they'll be more work to peel. – Cascabel Feb 25 '16 at 19:45
  • @Jefromi : you say that knowing in advance what the problems are. Imagine you didn't know about that, and were suddenly surprised and hadn't made plans in advance for dealing w/ it, and it screwed up your planning the timing for the whole rest of the meal. – Joe Feb 26 '16 at 10:43
  • @Joe Sure, it's a reasonable thing to point out, it's just posted as an answer to a question that really appears to be asking about the actual effect on the dish. Just mentioning why it seems like a less useful answer *to the question*, I agree it's a useful tidbit. – Cascabel Feb 26 '16 at 11:00
  • @Jefromi : You mean the question that asked "What are the pros and cons of using them as a direct substitute for lemons in recipes?" – Joe Feb 26 '16 at 12:19
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/36269/discussion-between-jefromi-and-joe). – Cascabel Feb 26 '16 at 12:29