a brief etymological diversion

[kaberett]

I am currently attempting to Cook Things With Blood Oranges, for reasons, which means that I've gone back through my scrapbook of recipes torn out of magazines, and one of the things I've found is a recipe for "blood orange and cardamom jam".

I wondered a little about this, because by default I'd say "if it's made with citrus then, in English, it's marmalade, not jam", but it wasn't until I was prompted in conversation that I actually went hunting.

(In German, "Marmelade" is the English "jam" and the English "marmalade" is "Orangenmarmelade", lit. "oranges jam", so the distinction this Waitrose Food magazine recipe is making is... harder to express. The reason for this apparent confusion is that it all comes from the Galician-Portuguese "marmelade" i.e. quince paste/membrillo, from the Greek for quince "honey apple". Apparently.)

Which led me, inexorably, to Council Directive 2001/113/EC of 20 December 2001 relating to fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and sweetened chestnut purée intended for human consumption, and particularly:

‘Marmalade’ is a mixture, brought to a suitable gelled consistency, of water, sugars and one or more of the following products obtained from citrus fruit: pulp, purée, juice, aqueous extracts and peel.

The quantity of citrus fruit used in the manufacture of 1 000 g of finished product must not be less than 200 g of which at least 75 g must be obtained from the endocarp.

... which is to say it's gotta have orange-pulp-from-orange-segments in, but skin is optional. So now I know! At least as far as the EU is concerned.

Comments

[sylvaine]

Oh gosh, that recipe sounds so good *____*

[fyreharper]

Marmalade legal definition is that it’s the PEEL that’s optional????????? O_o my vague handwavey concept of “what is marmalade” was basically “citrus peel jam” (or possibly “citrus peel in clear same-citrus jelly”… (jelly in the American sense)) - I would have assumed that what makes it jam instead was having it be made of the insides of the fruit (including pulp)!

[ludy]

OK so preserving is one of my special interests so this could get long.

Legal definitions are often weird because they have to include previously accepted edge cases (I vaguely remember a fuss in the 90’s about carrots being (briefly?) classed as an EU fruit because they are used for traditional jam in Portugal (and other places obviously)).

Traditional citrus marmalade (not like onion or quince marmalade and other things that aren’t what we thing of we we just say marmalade) always involves the citrus peel but doesn’t always have shreds in the finished product. There are two traditional processes - the whole fruit method and the cut fruit method (some whole fruit snobs claim only the whole fruit method is “real” marmalade but both methods have a long history and only experts would be able to tell the difference in the finished product. Personally having tried making a few variations of both I favour the cut fruit method). The main difference is whether you cut the citrus fruit before or after cooking the citrus fruit (it’s always boiled before you add the sugar or the peel won’t soften). Using the whole fruit method you effectively make a “tea” from the fruit and then cut it up, remove the seeds and shred the peel before return it and the fruit pulp to the pan and adding the sugar. So you could only return the fruit pulp but not any shredded peel and make a clear preserve that would still taste like marmalade in spite of not having all bits in. (Golden Shredless and Tiptree Non-Peel Orange Marmalade are widely available commercially).

Obviously in colloquial UK English “marmalade” means any citrus preserve (apart from citrus curds) but there seems to be more of a distinction between marmalades and citrus jams in the US (this recipe for honey-sweetened citrus jam from Food in Jars contains some interesting musings on what is and isn’t a marmalade - I’m not sure I 100% agree with their conclusions but their reasoning makes sense to me. But this grapefruit recipe definitely meets my definition of a jam - and is a very sensible use of citrus fruit you don’t feel comfortable to use the coated peel of). There isn’t really a traction of making citrus jams in the UK apart from with mixed fruit jams that contain some citrus (it would be interesting to ask a bunch of different people where they thing the tipping point between marmalade with some X non-citrus fruit and X and citrus jam happens). I mostly make marmalades (the traditional Seville orange type for my Dad) but have enjoyed the quicker process and brighter flavour of a few experiments with citrus jams
So prolly only hardcore UK preservers/food geeks are going to recognise the distinction between citrus jams and marmalades but the two products definitely taste quite different. Without the bitterness from the peel and pith, and without the long slow boiling to develop the depth of flavour, citrus jams are brighter and lighter. And they usually lack the essential oils from the peel - just like in non-preserve-recipes that use citrus juice but not the zest. Basically citrus jams taste like (a cooked version of) the fruit tastes but marmalades taste more like how the fruit smells with extra bitterness from the pith that we don’t really eat in any other form.

[lnr]

Now I want grapefruit jam, but medication interactions says no.

Thanks for the excellent explanations.