It’s taken me decades to figure this out.

Oranges were a treat, in much of the Western World, for at least the first half of the 20th century.

I am not so old that oranges have never seemed rare. In the store year round for the whole of my life.

But we go back a bit earlier in time, and we begin to pick up clues, hints, of how special oranges were.

Going back to the 16th century, oranges typically appeared in still life paintings of fruit. This Caravaggio certainly has a lemon in it; could be an orange just behind it.

Remember, orange trees can’t really stand repeated freezes, and that means you can’t cultivate orange trees anywhere north of the Alps.

Oranges appear to have been first cultivated in Southeast Asia, which is warm. And citrus trees eventually appeared around the Mediterranean. Again, a warm area.

People living too far north, whether it was Germany or England or the northern half of the U.S., could not grow oranges anywhere nearby. They were precious. Probably expensive, too.

In the Alan Furst novels, set in Europe on the eve of World War II, characters are often happy to have an orange. People have them for dessert. And the recipients are portrayed as being pleased to have them.

Back in Southern California, a high school basketball tournament based in San Bernardino, which was in the center of the orange-growing industry, when it was big in greater Los Angeles, gave out bags of navel oranges to competing players.

That probably seemed a nice treat, in 1959, but a decade or two later it became a problem for the tournament; kids actually said, “Why did they give us oranges?” Because by then they were nothing special. Not in California and not in Minnesota, either.

Oranges are available all the time, in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. They come over from North Africa, not that far to ship, and oranges hold up fairly well, after being picked.

I love oranges. For most of two decades I lived close enough to some of the last, neglected tracts of orange groves, in Highland, to walk up into them and pick a dozen smallish navels, and perhaps eat a couple right on the spot.

So, oranges. Just another citrus fruit at the store. But some of us may have living relatives who remember — even in the last century — when it was a special occasion, to have an orange.

And go back even further, and oranges were such a big deal that grand masters painted them.