Today, we’re featuring Jason Wilson, author of the Substack, “Everyday Drinking,” one of the 11 recipients of the Substack Food Fellowship, here. Congrats to Jason and his peers. We encourage you to subscribe to their publications, as they’re some of the best food newsletters on the platform.

— The editors

You probably don’t think very much about lemons. They’re so commonplace as to be an afterthought. It may surprise you that, throughout history, they’ve been among the world’s most coveted and mysterious of foodstuffs. Without question, the lemon is the most painted fruit in Western art. During the Dutch golden age alone, more than half of the 17th-century still-life paintings depicted the yellow citrus. Why did the lemon appeal so deeply to those artists? But then that isn’t the lemon’s only mystery. When and where was it first grown? Perhaps 3,000 years ago? Maybe older? Perhaps from northwestern India? Maybe Myanmar? Who really knows?

What we do know — and what is most relevant to our pairing this week — is that lemons were brought to Sicily by conquering Muslims in the 9th century, when the island was part of the Byzantine Empire. Within a few centuries, lemons were so plentiful in Sicily that the Bay of Palermo was called the Conca d’Oro, the shell of gold, for the yellow citrus fruits shining along the coast. By the 19th century, after doctors realized that citrus cured scurvy, it was 60 times more profitable to grow lemons than any other crops, including olives and wine grapes. So lucrative was the lemon trade that it gave rise to Sicily’s mafia, who controlled the industry.

So why all the talk about lemons?