While doom scrolling on TikTok when I very clearly should have been asleep I came across a video of Cilla Black.
The singer and presenter died in 2015 but she remains a household name for millions and I have very fond memories of watching Blind Date and Surprise Surprise when I was a kid in the 90s. But the clip I saw was from a BBC documentary 'Eating With...' from 2006 and showed Cilla explaining how she enjoyed consuming oranges.
She tells the viewers about a strange snack pairing she had created when she was a child, and something she still enjoyed, after becoming so eager as a child to eat them both at the same time. She had taken an orange, which had been sliced in half, and rubbed it with a beef Oxo cube, proclaiming: "Doesn't that look fabulous?"
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At first, I thought it was a parody cooked up by someone like Armando Iannucci for a satire skit, but as the footage goes on it takes a dramatic turn as Cilla, who was raised Catholic, said she feared for her soul after enjoying the combination on a Friday, a day it would be considered sinful to eat meat.
The voiceover said: "The sweet and savoury combination of orange and Oxo was Cilla's first taste of sin." She then recounts how she was forced to go to confession in order to take Holy Communion that Sunday.
While the video has done the rounds on social media before, I was intrigued that Cilla had continued to enjoy the naughty nibble all those years later. It must taste good, it is low in calories and fat and fresh fruit is always a bonus - although I wasn't best pleased about potentially wasting an Oxo, they are pricey now.
So I sliced the orange just as Cilla had done and rubbed the Oxo over the segments. This is exactly how Cilla ate it in the clip from the BBC but I also prepared a segment on its own as that may have only been a serving suggestion for the exotic morsel.
The smell of the Oxo was quite intensely meaty, as anyone who has crumbled one will know. It is not unpleasant, but you kind of know you shouldn't be eating it raw, so it did put me off.
Biting into the orange the first thing you get is the saltiness of the Oxo then as the sharp, sweet orange juice bursts into your mouth you get the meaty beef flavour too. And while you might be thinking 'ah, like duck à l'orange', you would be completely wrong.
The juice and the Oxo form a sort of gravy, which is totally disgusting in texture and taste. The seasoning of the Oxo just lingers and overwhelms you while bits of the extreme beef flavour clings to your teeth - even 20 minutes after eating I could still taste the Oxo.
I tried sprinkling some of the cube onto a segment to see if the added crunch texture would help the experience. It did not.
It was the same combination in my mouth with the juice and the stock cube forming a vile paste that sits on the tongue. This was perhaps one of the worst snacks I have ever indulged in and I never want to eat the concoction again.
But, that does not mean I will judge anyone who does part take in the Oxo orange, I hate coriander, so what do I know?
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