Marmalade - my Great Grandmother and a Great Bear

We have a few weeks back in the UK. Time to catch up with family, pull old recipe books off of shelves, eat half a Christmas cake that was saved for us in three days straight.

“What would you like to do while you’re here?”  Mum texts.

“Marmalade?”

“I hadn’t planned on making it this year, but you’re welcome to.”

So now I’m in her kitchen. Despite the window being open, rivulets of condensation chase each other down the panes, the walls. It cloaks the kind of January day that feels like it will never get bright. I am in my own cloud of orange and sugar.

Mum tells me to make two batches, else I risk one burning on the base of the jam kettle. This she knows from experience. The pans we have retrieved from the awkward low corner cupboard in her kitchen are the same she has used all my life.

This may not be my kitchen, but it is the kitchen of my lockdown. I have a brief re-calibration moment with the electric hob when the pot boils over - turns out 4 is quite high - but otherwise I am comfortable here.

Seville oranges washed and waiting

An artist, mum’s off preparing for an upcoming exhibition. It’s just me and our fifteen year old dog who, now completely deaf, occasionally taps across the lino floor to nudge the back of my knee just in case it’s time for her next meal and she hasn’t heard the call.

“You’ve got six hours to wait Zola.” She gives me big eyes, looks mildly annoyed that time still passes in the same way it always has (slowly when food is involved) and potters back to the relative safety of the carpet next door.

I am alone with my Seville oranges.

Halved Seville oranges

Each has to be halved and then squeezed. I use the heavy glass juicer that we’ve always had, with a ridge around the centre point to catch the pips. This goes into the second pan, the pips into a separate bowl to be gathered in muslin and added later to release the setting pectin marmalade needs.

Pips waiting for the muslin

Then the Moulinex. The three-footed manually powered orange peel shredder my grandmother used. Rotating the horizontal handle catches quartered peel in-between two sets of jagged metal teeth. The result makes, for me, what marmalade is.

Not clear, peel-less, a hint of citrus.

Not peel so thick it’s almost candied.

But marmalade. Buttered brown toast on a rainy day curled up on the sofa. Three sandwiches wrapped in clingfilm snuck into the second row of the cinema to watch Paddington (a famously marmalade loving bear) with my parents. Weighty jars handed as gifts to friends, family, the pop of the lid the sound of appreciation and its taste a sharing of gratitude.

Great Grandmother’s Moulinex in action ft. Paddington

The Moulinex takes some getting used to. The teeth are sprung too tight, then I pack it so much it won’t move.

Eventually, we find our balance and the shredded peel piles onto the baking tray I’ve set up to catch it. I feel my female marmalade making lineage breathe a sigh of culinary relief.

Then jarring. The metal jar on a long black handle, the sound of the warm marmalade falling getting higher in pitch as the jar fills.

Lids on, waiting for the tell tale pop as the seal sets in. In the morning, the jars glow as the sun rises. It is set. We have buttered marmalade toast for breakfast.

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It is worth pointing out here that Paddington plays a big role in our lives. I grew up with the books, and he travels with us all over the world. I’ll never be one to share every meal I cook. The combination of grandma’s Moulinex and Paddington makes this marmalade special. I hope you enjoy it.

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Recipe (as taught to me aka it’s in old money)

Ingredients

• 2lbs Seville oranges

• Juice of two lemons

• 4 pints water

• 2lbs granulated white sugar

• 1lb light muscavado sugar

Method

1. Wash, half and juice the fruit. Save the pips.

2. Use a Moulinex, or cut the peel super thin/to your liking

3. Put the juice, peel, water and pips (tied in muslin) into a big pan.

4. Simmer for 2 hours, or until reduced by about half.

5. Fish out the pips in their muslin, and squeeze it hard over the pan before setting to one side.

6. Put some plates into the fridge. Add the sugar to the pan. Rapidly boil for about 15 minutes.

7. At this point, start testing for setting point. Take a teaspoon of the marmalade and put it on a plate in the fridge. After a couple of minutes, take it out, tip the plate, and run your finger through the marmalade. It will not slide off the plate and will wrinkle around your finger when it is set.

8. Pour into clean, sterilised jars, and put the lids on tight.