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The most common variety of lime in Mexico is the small Mexican or key lime that turns yellow as it ripens; its juice is more tart than our darker-green Persian/Tahitian (seedless) limes.
Mexican limes occasionally show up in markets in the United States, especially those in large Mexican communities and some parts of Florida. In Mexican Spanish, limes are called limones, which sounds like the English for lemon–but they are not lemons; there is a limón dulce, a sweet variety of lime, but it is not widely found. There are sweet and sour limas, too, distinguished by the pronounced nipple on the blossom end and very unusual taste. In the Guadalajara market, they serve the juice of the sweet lima, while in Yucatán, among other places, the sour lima is squeezed into broth to flavor it.
I have found our yellow lemons sold commercially only in northwest Mexico, where they are called límones reales.
Excerpted from Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless (Morrow).
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