Marmalade time!

[Flosshilde]

The big divide in Marmalade seems to be between chunky & jelly. When I was a lad I used to hate the peel & pick it out (I used to do the same thing with the currants in Chelsea buns ). Now I'm happy with chunky; I tend to be a bit haphazzard when I'm chopping it up, & it's not a universal thickness. There was an episode of the Archers some time ago when Phil & Jill were making marmalade & it got a bit competitive. Phil insisted that using a food processor was legitimate, whereas Jill thought that the result would be too uniform peel - actually not my experience when I tried using one. If I remember correctly Phil's ended up exploding - so you should count yourself lucky, Frenchy, that yours just turned out like golden syrup!

[mangerton]

Tiptree is to marmalade what Ambrosia is to rice pudding - simply the best.

For "Bought marmalade!" Tiptree takes a lot of beating, though I prefer Frank Cooper's Oxford myself.

But good as Ambrosia is, surely nothing could beat the smell of mother's home-made rice pudding, with the brown skin that my sister and I used to fight over, cooking slowly in the oven.

[Uncle Monty]

Now stop it! I'm afraid this is getting to me. I just looked in at the Performance Forum and read "Imogen Cooper's Mozart Concertos" as "FRANK Cooper's Mozart Concertos". Most worrying

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Whenever we're tempted to make marmalade, we sit and look at a jar of Wilkin & Sons Tiptree Orange in silence until the urge passes. Cannot be bettered, why bother trying?

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Uncle M.

[Curalach]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Uncle M.

Ah, but you miss out on the feeling of smug satisfaction you get as you store 30 or so freshly labelled jars in the larder!
The only other preserve I make on an annual basis is Bramble Jelly. Being a Scot, that may have something subliminal to do with the free fruit!!

[mangerton]

Ah, bramble jelly....... or bramble and apple pie...or crumble. They taste so much better when you've gathered your own brambles.

Curalach, subliminally I'm sure you're right. :cool2:

[Flosshilde]

Ah, but you miss out on the feeling of smug satisfaction you get as you store 30 or so freshly labelled jars in the larder!
The only other preserve I make on an annual basis is Bramble Jelly. Being a Scot, that may have something subliminal to do with the free fruit!!

& Seville oranges are one of the very few foods that are not supplied out of season. They are only available for a very short period in January or February. So making marmalade is a seasonal activity and a reminder that things aren't always available all the time at the drop of a hat.

Brambles were particularly plentiful in Glasgow last Autumn; unfortunately I didn't manage to pick any (except for a handful in the mornings walking the dog to put on my breakfast cereal).

[Eudaimonia]

When I was at University, I rented a room from a professor who had orange, lime, apricot, pomegranate, and plum trees on his property... he couldn't be bothered to do anything but let it rot, so one summer I gathered it all up and made enormous batches of preserves.

Good grief, I must have put up a dozen big mason jars of orange marmalade...for some reason, it turned out so thick and dark-- who knows why! Unfortunately, most of it went bad before I used it as I don't care for marmalade in the best of circumstances.

That summer, I also made lots of candied rose petals, and brewed my own ginger ale-- which I combined with all that lime juice and some sugar over ice in big frosty mugs. Glorious! Good memories indeed.

[Curalach]

Seville oranges are one of the very few foods that are not supplied out of season.

That's one of the things I really like about it. Brambles too. I draw the line at putting a dog on my breakfast cereal though!!!

[Alain Maréchal]

Every year I buy some 'bought' marmalade (Tiptree Tawny) just to remind myself why I attempt this ridiculously messy procedure. Nothing, nothing, compares with home-made marmalade. For the last two years I've tried a variant in which the fruit is boiled whole, then cut up, sliced and depipped. I think its an improvement.

Could somebody explain something though? Which came first, the bitter oranges or the marmalade? In other words, was marmalade invented in order to use up late, and otherwise inedible fruit, or was it a happy accident? And is it now grown solely for this purpose?

[amateur51]

Tried twice and ended up with something approaching an orangy version of Golden Syrup. Yes, I did follow the instructions, I did wait for the wrinkles to appear on the saucer. To fresh woods and pastures new

Sounds like the perfect accompaniment to your wind-dried frozen peas, french frank

[amateur51]

That's one of the things I really like about it. Brambles too. I draw the line at putting a dog on my breakfast cereal though!!!

Oh dear, Curalach, that caused an explosion here & now I have warm tea on my keyboard! - excellent stuff

[arancie33]

They are only available for a very short period in January or February.

Indeed they are only freshly available at this time of the year but they can be frozen and resurrected for marmalade at any time. Just take them out, simmer in the water until soft, allow to cool then halve them, de-pip and slice or process the peel to taste then do the sugar/boil/crinkle bit as normal. If, like us, you need 50 or 60 jars to see you (and your offspring) through the year then it's a good way to spread the load.

[subcontrabass]

There was an episode of the Archers some time ago when Phil & Jill were making marmalade & it got a bit competitive. Phil insisted that using a food processor was legitimate, whereas Jill thought that the result would be too uniform peel - actually not my experience when I tried using one.

There used to be hand cranked machines available specifically for slicing oranges for marmalade. My parents had one, bought in the 1930s by grandma and passed down. When the blades finally wore out in the 1980s (after being used regularly every year for making our year's supply and some extra to sell) we found that the firm who made it had gone out of business only a year before. My parents then swapped to using a food processor.

[Ferretfancy]

Another essential element of making my own marmalade is that the product matures with storage,but I usually don't wait to start. On the first suitably cold day out comes the big basin, and I'm all set to make a steamed marmalade sponge pudding, lovely stuff with lashings of custard!
There's an item in this week's New Scientist about claims that DNA can "teleport" itself into a sample of pure water, and it might be possible to use the "copy" to reconstruct the original. This will almost certainly prove to be untrue, but it opens a lovely possibility, food shared via the Internet!