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Orange Marmalade
Procure thirty-six fine, sound, juicy (not too ripe), good-sized oranges. Lightly grate rind of each all around, prickle all over with a needle, plunge in plenty of boiling water, cover pan and cook until rinds are thoroughly soft. Drain on a sieve, plunge in plenty cold water and let disgorge for forty-eight hours, changing water four times a day. Thoroughly drain, divide in sections, remove seeds and press pulp and skins through sieve into a basin. Place as many pounds granulated sugar in basin as there are pounds of marmalade, add a gill Jamaica rum or brandy, and cook on a brisk fire for ten minutes. Add puree, constantly stir while briskly cooking for fifteen minutes, remove, place marmalade in stone jars and let thoroughly cool. Cover with wax papers, lightly dipped in brandy, tightly cover jars and marmalade is ready for use.
A large-batch, French-influenced marmalade that leans on two days of soaking rather than long boiling to tame bitterness. The soak is the whole method, and the instructions for sugar and setting need translating before you start.
- Scale down firstThe recipe gives no yield, but thirty-six good-sized oranges with an equal weight of sugar makes a very large batch, likely well over ten pounds of finished marmalade. A quarter batch of nine oranges is far more manageable and behaves the same way.
- A gillHalf a cup. At quarter scale that is 2 tablespoons of rum or brandy.
- Grating and prickingThe light grating removes the outermost oil-bearing layer of zest; the needle holes let water reach the white pith so the soak can work. Neither step looks decorative, and bitterness sits in the pith and membranes as much as in the peel.
- "Disgorge" for 48 hoursSimply soaking in cold water, changed four times daily, to leach out bitter compounds. Keep the bowl refrigerated or in a cold room in warm weather rather than on the counter.
- "Brisk fire"A hard, rolling boil over high heat, not a simmer. Use a wide, heavy pan with plenty of headroom, since boiling sugar climbs.
- The sugar step is underspecifiedSugar cooked alone for ten minutes will caramelize or scorch. Assume it is dissolved in a little of the fruit's cooking water or juice first; weigh the drained puree and match it pound for pound with sugar.
- Judge the set, not the clockFifteen minutes is a guide only. Cook to 220F on a candy thermometer, or until a spoonful wrinkles on a chilled plate. Ripe fruit gives less pectin, which is why the recipe asks for oranges that are not too ripe.
- StorageBrandied wax paper under a lid was the period's answer to mold and is not a seal. Use sterilized jars and either process them in a boiling-water bath by current guidance or keep the marmalade refrigerated and eat it within a few weeks.
- The sievePressing pulp and softened skins through a sieve gives a smooth, jelly-like preserve with no shreds. A food mill does the same work; a blender will not, as it pulverizes the pith and turns the flavor muddy.
Marmalade takes its name from the Portuguese marmelada, a stiff quince paste, and only migrated to citrus after bitter Seville oranges became a staple of northern European winter trade; the shredded, breakfast-table style is generally traced to Scottish kitchens, Dundee above all. This version seems to belong to a different tradition: the sieved puree, the long cold soak described as making the fruit "disgorge," and the finishing glass of rum or brandy suggest the habits of the French professional kitchen, which tended to treat preserves as confectionery rather than as toast-spread. The scale is a reminder of what the word "household" meant in a book of this period. Thirty-six oranges and an equal weight of sugar, and the equal-weight sugar was not indulgence but the preservative doing its job.