Name: Citron (Citrus medica). One of the handful of original, non-hybrid citrus species — nearly all other citrus fruits, including lemon, lime, and sweet orange, descend from crosses involving citron, mandarin, and pomelo.
Description
Citron is a small evergreen tree or shrub grown chiefly in Mediterranean countries and the West Indies, bearing an oblong, furrowed fruit about 12 to 15cm long with a thick, adhesive rind — a fragrant, greenish-yellow outer layer over a thick white, fleshy inner pith. The pulp itself is firm, fairly dry, and either sharply acidic (as in the Diamante variety) or mild and sweet (as in the Corsican variety), but it is a minor part of the fruit and mostly used only for by-products rather than eaten fresh.
Citron holds particular religious significance in Judaism, where a specific cultivar called the etrog is one of the “four species” used in rituals during the harvest festival of Sukkot. Its thick peel is also cured in brine and candied, most famously as the candied citron peel used in traditional fruitcakes and panettone.
Main nutrition value
Since citron is rarely eaten as flesh, the figures above only illustrate what a comparable acidic citrus provides in vitamin C, fiber, and potassium; in practice, citron products like candied peel are consumed in small amounts and are mostly sugar once candied, with much of the original fruit’s nutrition diminished by the candying process.
How best to be consumed
Citron is used almost entirely as peel: candied for fruitcakes, panettone, and confections, or brined and preserved. In Jewish tradition the etrog cultivar is used ceremonially rather than eaten. Fresh citron pulp, where consumed at all, is treated more like a garnish or flavoring than a fruit eaten out of hand.
Overconsumption could cause…
Because most citron is consumed as candied peel, the main concern with eating a lot of it is the added sugar from candying rather than the fruit itself. Fresh citron pulp and peel share the general citrus caution around acidity and sun-sensitizing peel oils, but overconsumption in either form is uncommon given how the fruit is typically used.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, FoodData Central — Lemons, raw, without peel (FDC ID 167746), 100g portion: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/167746/nutrients (no USDA entry exists for citron, which is grown mainly for its peel rather than eaten as flesh; lemon, one of its closest citrus relatives, is used below as the closest documented match) Encyclopaedia Britannica — Citron: https://www.britannica.com/plant/citron
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