Food Stuff - Mystery Marmalade
John Lethlean
John Lethlean, culinary critic
In a world where the great innovations of food seem to come from the multinationals’ packaging departments (squeezable fruit purees with nipple-like valves for sucking, or plastic cheese moulded to replicate Pixar animation characters) a curiously plain jar emerged one day earlier this year from the depths of my pantry to play a brief but influential role in our lives.
It said – merely – “Orange and grapefruit marmalade 7/10/02” on a small, rectangular white sticker. I reckon the jar might once have borne Dolmio supermarket pasta sauce. Viva recycling.
Two things made the jar special.
First, it was a really excellent marmalade; not too sweet, suitably viscous but not too gelatinous or crystallised around the edges, and with a complex citrus flavour that made love to butter and toast made with real bread (our current loaf of choice is from Irrewarra, in the Western District, where the product - always good in the past - now matches the truly excellent packaging, which consists of a monochromatic paper waistband, not a squeezable nipple pack.)
Second, the jar’s provenance was, and remains, a complete mystery; I can’t remember what I bought yesterday let alone five years ago. We just found it in the pantry one morning and… hello, where have you been hiding?
Was it a school fete? A farmer’s market? A gift? Someone else’s picnic hamper, inappropriately raided?
“Where did that marmalade come from,” I asked the person sharing this ever-diminishing jar, once we had outed it. “No idea, you’re the foodie,” she replied. Unhelpful; but no less so than my own contribution.
Still, I rather liked the idea that, based on the six-degrees-of-separation model, we almost certainly knew, or could be connected to, the author of this masterpiece. Whoever you are, I salute you. And do you have any more for sale, because whatever that jar’s qualities, it were no Magic Pudding.
I confess to pulling the jar from the glass recycling bag, amongst the wine bottles and vegemite jars, in desperation to scrape out the very last of the last golden contents just yesterday, but then, I do the same with toothpaste tubes.
I checked the pantry, again. If there was another jar from the superb September 2002 vintage in there among the fish sauces, saffron threads and baked beans, I couldn’t find it. A certain post-marmaladian despondency set in.
But how hard could it be? I wondered. And according to the big stripy book with Ms Alexander’s name on the cover, the answer was “not that hard.” Boil julienned zest with water and fruit juice for about an hour with pips and pith in a muslin bag, for pectin (the setting agent). Leave overnight. Squeeze the bag like a beach towel that’s gone in the pool. Boil liquid again and add hot sugar. Boil unstirred for a bit more. Allow to cool and bottle. Piece of cake.
I couldn’t leave the recipe alone, of course. It was for oranges and lemons; I substituted a few grapefruit for some of the oranges. It seemed an appropriate tribute to my anonymous muse. And that recipe-fiddling was at the back of my mind when, on completion of this failsafe procedure, I basically had hot liquid.
It tasted like marmalade, and it looked like marmalade, but it poured like syrup. It was so not ready to pass the setting test. The lesson: no matter what the recipe says about boiling time, the important thing is to make sure the initial – day one – cooking reduces the liquid significantly. In my case, it had not; and I didn’t recognise the problem until I was supposed to have something marmalade connoisseurs would recognise.
I made a few calls; the remedy wasn’t entirely forthcoming. Basically, two of the best, most accomplished, down-to-earth, can-do cooks I know said “don’t ask me, I’m no good at that sort of stuff” or words to that effect.
Still, with a lot more gentle cooking than was recommended, and with the significant pectin qualities of the grapefruit, what I ended up with, when it had been chilled, was fabulous tasting orange and grapefruit jelly with zest in it. Not quite the ratio of rind you’d prescribe for a great marmalade, but the flavour was unquestionably excellent.
I wrote on the jar: “OGL 12/10/07”. It’s for domestic consumption only. And when it’s gone, I’ll do it again, only different and better. Finally, I have a new thing. I can marmalade.
And one day, I want some to end up at a school fete. Or farmer’s market. I want a jar to go home with someone who’ll chuck it in the pantry and forget it, only to retrieve the golden vessel five years hence and say: “Where did this come from, it’s bloody good.” The cycle will be complete.
From a collection of John’s food writing 2005-2008.
Follow John Lethlean and Necia Wilden on Twitter as they eat and drink their way around Australia
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