Orange marmalade

When Alice finds herself tumbling down that rabbit-hole on the start of her iconic adventures in Wonderland, (to read more about Alice In Wonderland, click here) she picks up a jar marked ORANGE MARMALADE from a shelf she falls past – “but to her great disappointment it was empty.” And who wouldn’t be disappointed? Orange marmalade has sustained the national breakfast table for an aeon now, an odd feat, you might think, in a climate that can’t grow oranges.

Marmalade’s origins lie in marmelo, a Portuguese quince paste that gave its name more generally to citrus fruit preserves. It was the English who discovered that if you boiled the pulp of oranges with sugar and some of the chopped peel, you didn’t need fruit pectin (traditionally derived from apples) to set it. Marmalade was carried on ocean-going vessels as a specific against scurvy, as well as becoming a favoured provision in the home. Usually made from bitter Seville oranges, it somehow makes more of a fitting first-thing-in-the-morning confection than other preserves.

Great names in marmalade include Robertson’s, Wilkins, and Frank Cooper of Oxford. A tin of Frank Cooper taken on Scott’s expedition to the North Pole in 1911 was opened in 1980, and found to be in excellent condition.