When Mary Queen of Scots, whilst crossing the Channel and North Sea to claim the throne, fell ill, her lady in waiting, a very practical woman by all accounts, boiled up a soup of bitter oranges and sugar to help the young Queen recover. When asked why she had done it she replied by saying, "parce que Marie est malade." So a name for a new product was born - Marmalade! This is, of curse complete twaddle and not the truth at all. However it is a great tale and should be told to all children in order that they see the effect of history on our food culture and also see the importance of learning a foreign language.
The real etymology of the word comes from the Portuguese word for quince "Marmelo" which was made into a paste "Marmelada". This was often imported to England along with Port, Madeira and other wines. It was sometimes flavoured with other things such as citrus peel and the Marmalde as we know it was born, or rather, developed.
This weekend I made a 3 kilo batch of my basic recipe marmalade. There is a very small window of time in the calendar to make this staple of the breakfast table. Seville oranges are only available for the first 6 weeks of the year so enough should be made for both the whole year and presents as well.
Making one's own jams and preserves often works out to be more expensive than buying the major brands in the super market. However, one's own product is nearly always much better than that purchasable in the shops. If one can get hold of fruit for free then both the cost and quality are to the advantage of the maker.
In the film, Gosford Park, Dame Maggie Smith's character, Constance, the Countess of Trentham, is appalled by the fact that she is served "shop bought" marmalade on her breakfast tray. For once I am on the side of Nobility in this.
I think that one of reasons for home made marmalade being so much more appealing than shop bought lies in the level of sweetness. A wiser man than I once told me that marmalade should feel like a cold shower to the taste buds first thing in the morning. A ratio of 1:2 (Fruit to sugar) should be the absolute maximum for a real marmalade.
Below is my basic recipe for marmalede it has never failed me. In order to make the recipe yours simply change the type of sugar, maybe add whisky or brandy - the world is your orange (Seville, of course)
Seville Orange marmalade.
1 Kg of Seville Oranges (unwaxed of course)
1 lemon (unwaxed of course)
2.5 Ltr water
2 Kg of granulated sugar
Place a sieve over a preserving pan and, having cut all the fruit in half, squeeze all the juice trough the sieve into the pan. Make sure you keep all the pips. Scrape all the inner pith out of the skins of the fruit and add it with the pips to a square of muslin and tie it all up. Slice up the outer skins as thin as you like and add them to the juice.
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| About a third of the cutting done |
Now add the water and the muslin bag to the pan and boil for 1 and a half hours.
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| First boil |
Remove the muslin bag from the boil and, when it has cooled squeeze it gently into the boil. There will be a lot of pectin here but don't wring it out as it will create cloudiness in the marmalade.
Now add the sugar and boil the liquid until setting point has been reached (this can be tested using the wrinkle test, where a drop of the liquid is placed on a very cold plate, if it wrinkles when pushed with a finger, then nit is ready. |
| Ready for their labels |
