Food for Thought with Alex Bielak - Marmalade! Near and Far

Marmalade! Near and Far

I suppose it may be the British upbringing, but I love Marmalade. I love the associated rituals: Toast in a toast rack (or toast cooler as my wife refers to it), the butter melting, spooning out and spreading the wonderful preserve, the aroma, crunch and mouth feel, and scooping up the last escaped crumbs with sticky fingers.

Since this is the season home canners are active turning Seville oranges into tawny gold, I wanted to share some old and new favourites with readers.

My sister-in-law is known in the family as a premier source of a tangy marmalade she issues in small jars on special occasions to those deemed deserving. She vies with her Mother (my Mother in Law) in this respect, something I should probably try to put to my advantage.

Adrienne’s marmalade is a delightfully tangy and chewy three citrus blend with hits of lime and lemon rind
mingled with the orange. I had always imagined it to be some arcane and secret recipe. Not so, I recently learned! It is the bog-standard but delicious “Traditional Marmalade” recipe available on the Bernardin (the canning people) website. Not even the tiniest tweak.

However it is in short supply until such time as I get together with her one of these days to prepare a batch. So, for the most part I go commercial. For instance, a Mackays Three Fruit Marmalade awaits future sampling, even though sugar is listed as the first ingredient ahead of orange, grapefruit and lemon.

It has been years since I was able to get my all-time fave (a dark marmalade from Marks and Spencers), so I now favour chunky offerings obtained from one of two local British shops, Leylands British Foods in Waterdown or King’s Cross in Dundas. The one I usually stock in my pantry is “Frank Coopers Original Oxford Marmalade”. A bit sugar heavy it is still 40% fruit and I love its sweetly bitter caramel overtone and significant chunks of peel.

Not long ago, I tried a variant of the Original called “Vintage Oxford Marmalade”. This one is darker-yet with an even-more robust flavour. (There is also a fine cut for those with, shall I say, a more delicate sensibility. That sounds better than wimps I think.)

Both of these serious conserves are great and many consider them the best marmalades in the world. This includes Her Majesty the Queen, whose warrant Coopers proudly holds. The 454 gram jars retail for between five and six dollars, and the label notes the Original is “directly descended from Sarah Jane Cooper’s 1874 recipe made using Seville oranges to deliver a robust coarse-cut marmalade with real bite.”

Naturally there are options closer to home. As first mentioned in FFT 53, at the first Halton Region Food Tourism Summit I had the good fortune to connect with Niki Hilton, Marketing Manager at Springridge Farm. I learned that this “agricultural-tourism destination focused on fruit farming and family fun” was soon to release a Mother’s Day Marmalade that was going to be used by the folks at Langdon Hall in Cambridge.

Courtesy of Niki, I’ve been able to sample this lovely new hand-crafted preserve. They call it “a bright and bubbly ‘toast’ to all moms”. That’s down to the secret recipe blending Niagara peaches, navel oranges, sugar and an Ontario sparkling wine (in that order). So secret in fact I was shooed out of the busy production facility when I tried to take a photo during my visit.

It’s $5.99 per jar (250mL) and you can pick some up direct from the farm which is open daily, 9am-5pm, from now till Christmas. You can also still get their original and popular “Royal Wedding” Marmalade (no peaches, some pectin) or, to change things up, sample the strawberry/blueberry “Royal Baby” Jam.

The Springridge marmalades are lighter than my usual ones for sure, but are far from wimpy: they contain discernable bits of peach mixed with thinly chopped rind for the Mother’s Day version and lots of the slightly bitter rind in the Wedding version. I had all these on freshly-baked buttered white bread and heartily recommend them.

While preparing this article, and given my near-obsession with the product, I was a bit taken aback that there are a mere 4.63 Million search results for the term “Marmalade” on Google. And that figure is inflated by references to the sixties band previously known as the Gaylords, and not the spread… However one of the hits on the first page told me this article was right on trend.

The 9th Annual World’s Original Marmalade Awards and Festival concluded in Cumbria this March with the announcement of the world’s best marmalades. You won’t believe the flavours that won awards. They included: Lemon & Vodka; Tangelo, Fennel & Smoked Paprika; Ginger Chilli & Indian Spice; Tangelo, Star Anise, Cinnamon & Clove; and even Clementine & Lavender!

It looks like I need a field trip with my handy toast cooler to further broaden my horizons! And I’d welcome readers’ suggestions of other varieties I might enjoy…

For more pictures, click here. 

Alex (Alex can be reached at fft@thehamiltonian.info ) or on twitter @AlexBielak

Food for Thought logo, designed and kindly donated by Ninka Bielak. Ninka can be reached at ninka.bielak@gmail.com.