My Marmalade Vacation in Florida

On vacation in Sebring, FL with my parents, who have rented a villa in this Central Florida town. Central Florida is known for its citrus groves (the Florida Natural and Tropicana orange juice factories are in this region), so everywhere we drove, there were miles and miles of oranges and grapefruit which thrive in the sandy soil and high annual rainfall. There are even a grapefruit and orange tree in the backyard of the villa where we are staying. The fruit looks brown and unappetizing, but we picked some, and the grapefruit was juicy and sweet, as were the oranges.

On the drive back from Orlando (Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, for the ten-year-old in our group), we stopped by Davidson's of Dundee (dundeegroves.com), a marmalade and orange candy factory and store.

This place, whose citrus candy operation has been featured on the Food Network, makes nine kinds of marmalade, an orange-pecan-cinnamon preserve, four kinds of citrus jelly (Key Lime, Orange, Pink Grapefruit, and Tangerine), and orange "butter" made from finely chopped citrus peel.

Their marmalade was a very pretty: clear jelly with peel suspended in it. But I have to admit, we didn't love it, as it was made with corn syrup--way too sweet for our taste. It's a lovely place to visit, though, and the citrus candy was nice. They even had milk chocolate alligators for sale, which I was tempted to buy for my godson's Easter basket.

Tomorrow, we're going to McCracken Farms (mccrackenfarms.com) to pick oranges; I can't wait!

Fruitful research

Just gave my 92-year-old grandmother my last jar of pink grapefruit marmalade (she says she's addicted to the stuff), so am eagerly awaiting the advent of the citrus season in November/December . . . . 

In the meantime, I am researching marmalade around the globe and have discovered some interesting things about marmalade-making in India, thanks to my glamorous, actress friend Fiona Martinelli, who moved to Bangalore last year with her husband Nick and her five children. She put me in touch with Geetu Singh, who has given me so many wonderful resources, and here's some of what I've learned: 

• Historically, expatriate Britons made something they called "country marmalade" in India from pomelos, the thick-skinned and rather coarse ancestor of the grapefruit.  

• Marmalade has been a popular jam among the upper classes and, to some extent the middle classes, in India for a long time. It has been commercially produced for many years under the Kissan (Farmer) brand, and many Indians buy that brand, as their parents did before them. 

• There are also many home jam makers and communities from the state of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and the city of  Ooty, and others who love to make and can this jam, in season. For instance, Linnet Mushran (a Briton by birth) has led a group of inspired women in the fruit orchards of Himachal Pradesh, sourcing fruits directly from local small farmers and making homemade preserves and marmalades to provide a source of income for their families. What started as a small kitchen operation now employs and supports more than 100 women in the community.

• Rangpur limes (Citrus x limonia), a lemon and mandarin hybrid, originating in India, is best known for the fine marmalade produced from it, which is reputedly even better than that from Seville oranges. The fruit is grown in India, California, Australia, and Hawaii. I would really LOVE to get my hands on some of these and make some marmalade. Anyone know where I can get some?

I just find all this fascinating. Please write to me if you live somewhere other than England or the U.S. and are making marmalade. Tell me what citrus fruits you use, and tell me why you like "marmalading . . . ."

Marmalade Stories

One of the joys of writing about something you love is "meeting" all these wonderful people around the world who feel the same. I was recently corresponding with a delightful gentleman called Lachlan Shackleton-Fergus from Australia who, in February, won a gold medal at The World Marmalade Awards in Cumbria, UK (http://www.marmaladeawards.com/). (With a name like that, you'd expect him to make great marmalade, and he does. We also think we might be related somehow. We Scots have to stick together.)  


I was asking him what compelled him to start making his own--because it is a compulsion. He started making marmalade from Sicilian lemons growing on the island of Malta, where he lived at the time. He made hundreds of pounds of marmalade, and gave it away to the locals, who were not familiar with it. But he kept making it. And now he makes it and wins awards and sells it--alot of it. Check out his website: http://jbshackletons.com.au/

My best friend Jo was lucky enough to grow up with a mum who made her own, delicious Seville orange marmalade. But she grew up in England; I grew up in a rural part of New York State, where the only marmalade was Smucker's, and it got spread on the Easter ham. It wasn't anything to write about, that's for sure. 

But in 1986 I was an undergraduate studying for a semester in London, and I took the overnight ferry from Holyhead (Wales) to Dun Laoghaire (Dublin, Ireland) for Spring Break. (I couldn't afford warmer Southern European destinations, and nobody wanted to go where it was cold and rainy, so I went by myself). I arrived at a B&B in the Dublin suburbs at dawn, and the kind landlady took one look at me, and said, "you go on up to your room, and I'll bring you a nice breakfast tray." The breakfast tray contained: a steaming pot of strong tea, homemade toasted bread, creamy and salty Irish butter and her own homemade marmalade. I will never forget how that meal made me feel--warm and looked after--and how the marmalade tasted: sour and sweet and slightly bitter. And it was so beautiful to look at. 


Lachlan's description of eating marmalade as a student short on funds at Cambridge conjures up similiar images and feelings: "Marmalade, thickly spread on toast dripping with butter, browned on a three-pronged fork over a little room in front of the fire was a ritual." 

In 1987, when I was able to spend one term at Oxford, I didn't have the sitting room with a fire or the three-pronged fork, but I made a beeline to the Frank Cooper Marmalade shop on the High Street and stocked up on the dark, thick-cut marmalade. I was addicted to it.

Back in the U.S. (Washington, DC, working at Washington National Cathedral) I tried to find a way to make my own homemade marmalade because I missed the taste of it. I tried making some from sweet navel oranges, but when my best friend Jo http://www.projectmarmalade.com/ came to visit, she took one taste and said, "What is THIS?"

When I moved to Boston in 1995, I found a place in Harvard Square that sold MaMade, which is Seville oranges and pectin in a can; just add sugar (http://www.amazon.com/Hartleys-Orange-Made-Thin-850g/dp/B000JL2KQ2), so I tried that. It was pretty close to the real thing, so I happily made another batch and then another. Then I got bored and decided to add some Glenmorangie single malt Scotch whisky. I sold it at a holiday fair for $10 a jar. I thought about making it and selling it commercially, but I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I kept my day job in publishing. 

Now, I make it every winter, from grapefruit and sometimes kumquats, as they seem to taste the best. I use Nigella Lawson's easy pink grapefruit marmalade recipe http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/pink-grapefruit-marmalade-195086 because I am very lazy. And I experiment, sometimes using all dark brown sugar, which I like because it makes the marmalade all dark and rich and treacly. 

Maybe when I'm old I will have a dark green, enamel AGA stove http://www.agaliving.com/our-products/classic-aga-cookers.aspx in my kitchen and several cats, and I will "marmalade" all winter long and give jars away to the postman and to all my friends. Wait--that's kind of what I do now, except without the Aga and the cats. We're working on getting a cat, at least.

Please write and tell me why/how you started making your own marmalade?

A short history of well-travelled marmalade

It began innocently enough. My friend Jo in London, who is also obsessed with marmalade, was trawling the Internet one day and found a company that imports a coffee marmalade she wanted to try. The importer is in the U.S., but the coffee marmalade is made in Sicily. My friend first asked if the coffee marmalade could be shipped directly to her in London (England being closer to Italy than the U.S.). Apparently, it couldn’t. So she asked me if I could order it, then send it to her in London, so she could taste it and review it on her blog. She kindly offered to pay me for the shipping with dollars she has stashed away somewhere in her rambling house in north London. But I told her she could just send me a Fortnum & Mason chocolate rabbit for my daughter’s Easter basket instead. So far; so good.

I called the importer, a company called Gustiamo in New Jersey (www.gustiamo.com). A lovely lady (Martina) took my order, and as we were chatting, I mentioned to her that the coffee marmalade was for my friend in London who wants to review it on her blog. I placed my order, got off the phone, and went to make myself a well-deserved cup of tea. A little while later, the phone rang, and it’s another lovely lady from Gustiamo—this time the boss, Beatrice—who said she heard about the marmalade blog, and she would be happy to send the coffee marmalade at no charge to us. I said, "thank you so much" (thinking to myself in a Paddington Bear-like way that this could be the start of something truly wonderful—getting jars of marmalade in the mail for free!)

A week later, my little package came with not one, but two jars of Sicilian coffee marmalade. So the little box of marmalade, which had already crossed the Atlantic once (from Italy to New Jersey), is now wending its way back across the Atlantic again, from Boston to London. 

If you are curious (as I am) to find out what it tastes like, check out my friend Jo’s blog at http://www.projectmarmalade.com/ in a few weeks’ time. She needs to give the marmalade time to get over its jet lag.

  

Who Knew Marmalade Could Be Dangerous?

Under the heading of: “I couldn’t make it up if I tried . . . .”

Last year, it was reported that internationally acclaimed soprano Lisa Gasteen was able to return to the stage, three years after a mishap involving marmalade cut short her career. “In 2008, Gasteen had returned to her Brisbane home after a series of overseas performances when she spied her kumquat tree full of fruit. With a batch of marmalade in mind, she grabbed a bucket and climbed a ladder while still in her high heels, and pinched a nerve. The injury caused the muscles around her larynx to spasm painfully when she sang and forced her sudden exit from opera with a full schedule of bookings, crushing her fans worldwide.” [1]

Another news report describes how a millionaire killed during a robbery may have been fed marmalade by the raiders. Police suspected that the gang gave diabetic John Luper, the sugar-laden food thinking he had lapsed into a coma. A murder hunt was launched after Mr Luper’s body was found near a spoon and a jar of marmalade in a laundry room of his £1 million home in an affluent Leeds suburb. A post-mortem failed to establish exactly how Mr Luper died. [2]

And finally, a warning for all those who make marmalade: beware your stove. Biochemist and former teacher Keith Turnbull, 61, died in his remote cottage near Walk, northern England, just before Christmas while stirring homemade marmalade, unaware his faulty gas stove was emitting deadly carbon monoxide gas. The scientist’s dog Cleugh also died. [3]

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[1] Diva returns to opera stage to help emerging artists. (2011). The Gold Coast Bulletin, p. 33.

[2] Alastair, T. (n.d). Marmalade murder clue. The Sun.

[3] N.A. (n.d). British scientist’s death blamed on stove that leaked gas as he made marmalade. The Canadian Press.

Marmalade in Literature

Anyone who loves literature might be delighted to know how many times marmalade makes an appearance in the pages of some of our favorite childrens’ books as well as in grown-up literature. Of course, Paddington Bear loves marmalade so much it’s almost like a security blanket for him; (I can relate to that). When Alice finds herself tumbling down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, she picks up a jar called Orange Marmalade from a shelf—“but to her great disappointment, it is empty.” Look on Amazon, and you find that there are any number of children’s books and book series with main characters called Marmalade: Orlando the Marmalade Cat, A Star in a Marmalade Jar, Scotch Marmalade, Maine Marmalade, Marmalade Jim, The Mouse in the Marmalade. In the 1990s, the Japanese created The Marmalade Boy comic series, which became a television series, which became a movie, (which are now, alas, all out of print).

But it isn’t only in children’s literature that it appears. You’ll have to indulge me here, but even Shakespeare has Beatrice saying of Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing: “The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.” Although I may be stretching the point too far here, you have to admit, she is talking about an orange in a fairly complimentary way. Or maybe "civil" is just a pun on "Seville?" (We won’t mention here that in Shakespeare’s time, marmalade was usually made from quinces.)

Charles Ryder, the protagonist of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited, at Oxford in the 1920s, ate his “scrambled eggs and bitter marmalade with the zest which in youth follows a restless night.” Unfortunately, in The Road to Wigan Pier, “a jar of marmalade on a sideboard, ‘an unspeakable mess of stickiness and dust,’ epitomized for George Orwell the complete squalor of a working-class household.” [1] One of the several points on which I have to disagree with George.

More recently, The Beatles sang about marmalade skies in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and today, Christine Aguilera sings “Lady Marmalade.” “Bill Nighy and Geoffrey Whitehead starred in Marmalade for Comrade Philby, a play about a mediocre novelist who, on his occasional trips to Moscow, always visits the spy Kim Philby—material for a future book—and takes him a pot of his favorite Oxford marmalade (thick-cut).” [2]

And finally, Americans fans of Jan Karon’s popular Mitford books (about a small North Carolina town and its residents), know all about Esther Bolick, baker of a famous Orange Marmalade cake that is so sought after that it is the prize in raffles. (See January 20 blog entry for the recipe for this cake.)

I love this stuff; I really do. If any of my readers (all three of you) find another mention of marmalade in literature, would you please email it to me? In return, I promise to send you one of my jars of homemade pink grapefruit marmalade. (I have a lot to spare; I made 8 batches this winter.)

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[1] R. W. Apple, Jr. (2002, March 27). This Blessed Plot, This Realm of Tea, This Marmalade. The New York Times, p. 1.

[2] (2009, July 30). Radio Choice. The Daily Mail, p. 65.

Winston Churchill and marmalade

Winston Churchill was a life-long devotee of both marmalade and marmalade cats (orange tabby, for my American readers). In 2006, F. Duerr and Sons Ltd., manufacturers of branded and private-label preserves in Manchester, England, released the world’s most expensive Seville Orange Marmalade to mark the company’s 125th anniversary. Priced at £5,000/kilo, it contained 62-year-old Dalmore malt whisky, a dash of vintage Pol Roger Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill 1996 Champagne, and gold leaf, in a handmade crystal jar.[1]

“The Winston Churchill champagne was chosen because of the British statesman’s predilection for both marmalade and fine champagne. In his own unique take on the breakfast of champions . . . legend has it that Churchill downed a glass of Pol Roger cuvee daily with his full English breakfast. He justified this exuberance by saying: ‘In victory, I deserve it; in defeat, I need it.’ Indeed.”[2]

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[1] Sheila, K. (n.d). Marmalade. Times, The (United Kingdom). Retrieved March 21, 2011 from EBSCOhost. 

2 Toast and marmalade for tea. (2006). Money Management, 20(37), 36. Retrieved March 21, 2011 from EBSCOhost.)