Ameer Kotecha
A diplomatic sweetener: the power of marmalade
It took Paddington Bear to solve the age-old mystery of what the Queen keeps in her handbag. When Her Majesty pulled out a marmalade sandwich during the pair’s sketch at the Platinum Jubilee concert this summer, it did more than just tickle the audience. It also served to remind us of our national love affair with marmalade.
Long before Paddington developed a taste for it, the preserve had been a stalwart of British popular culture, from Jane Austen (where Lady Middleton applies marmalade as balm for her daughter’s scratch) to Evelyn Waugh (where, in Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder eats ‘scrambled eggs and bitter marmalade with the zest which in youth follows a restless night’) – not to mention Samuel Pepys, Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming. During the second world war, Winston Churchill is said to have stressed the need to keep the boats of marmalade oranges coming to maintain national morale.
It's a habit that extends far beyond our breakfast tables. The World’s Original Marmalade Awards, at Dalemain Mansion near Penrith, Cumbria, has ballooned from 60 entries when it started in 2005 to 3,000 today. The competition has since been exported to Australia (UK and Australian marmalades compete in the ‘Marmalashes’). And a visit by the Japanese ambassador to London led him to encourage the city of Yawatahma, at the centre of a citrus-producing area of the country’s south-west, to introduce its own marmalade awards too.
Despite the popularity of Paddington Bear with children, marmalade’s bitterness makes it feel a more grown-up preserve than jam. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that a survey of 30,000 UK households found 60 per cent of marmalade sales were to the over-65s, with just 1 per cent going to those under 28. There have been clouds on the orange horizon for years, with marmalade experiencing ostensibly waning popularity. But as The Spectator’s Vintage Chef Olivia Potts pointed out, the release in 2017 of Paddington 2 increased marmalade sales by 3 per cent in the UK after a four-year decline. Let’s hope the Platinum Jubilee sketch might have had a similarly energising effect.
The oranges you use for marmalade, of course, must be bitter oranges. They must come from Seville, whose vast production of the fruit is almost entirely exported for the British marmalade market. Making the spread is easy enough, though takes a little practise. Getting the sugar level right is key, as is the texture – chunky or fine cut or somewhere in between.
And of course Mother Nature’s bounty can never be presumed identical year on year. Cookery writer Jane Grigson remembers with misty eyes the January of 1981 when she and her friends all produced their best-ever batches of marmalade: ‘The oranges seemed to come to the setting point more quickly, the marmalade tasted fresher, with exactly the right balance of jelly and peel. Yet we all followed our usual recipes.’ Such triumphs come, and then may not for many years be repeated. To engage in the making of marmalade is to accept life as bittersweet.
Close watchers of diplomacy might have seen coming the royal fondness for a marmalade sandwich. As Hugh Elliott, our ambassador to Spain, explained in introducing his marmalade recipe in the Platinum Jubilee Cookbook: ‘For years, the Royal Alcázar in Seville supplied oranges to Buckingham Palace.’ As the tradition had lapsed the ambassador decided to bring it back to life, with a twist: ‘In 2020, 20kg of oranges were generously offered by the Alcaide – the Commander – of the Alcázar in Seville, picked by hand by British Honorary Consul Joe Cooper, and sent to the British Embassy in Madrid for the marmalade-making. The Residence Chef Carlos Posadas and I duly chopped, boiled and decanted into jars… The marmalade is served to guests at breakfast in the Residence and, of course, some has been sent to Buckingham Palace.’
The ambassador was continuing a long tradition of using marmalade as a diplomatic offering – Henry VIII received it as a gift (in a box as opposed to a jar, as at the time marmalade resembled a hard quince-based paste much like modern membrillo).
How to make a Breakfast Martini
The Jubilee cookbook also includes another recipe with marmalade front and centre. A dollop of the stuff was the flash of genius that enabled Salvatore Calabrese to create the Breakfast Martini in 1996 at the Library Bar of London’s Lanesborough hotel.
Salvatore knows a thing or two about martinis. He tells of one visit from Lord Westbury and Princess Margaret when he was working at Dukes Bar in St James’s: ‘Salvatore, I’m throwing a little party to celebrate a birthday of a friend. It’s a small party and she loves a martini. I know you make the best so will you come?’ asked Lord Westbury. ‘And I, of course, said I would.’ The ‘small party’, it turned out, was for none other than Her Majesty the Queen. On the day, the exuberant Italian was told sternly that under no circumstances was he to kiss her.
Salvatore’s inspiration for the Breakfast Martini came from a breakfast of toast and marmalade served by his English wife Susan. Later that day he set to work perfecting his new cocktail recipe. Arguably it is not even a martini owing to the absence of any vermouth; it bears more resemblance to a White Lady. The cocktail uses Frank Cooper’s marmalade, first cooked up in 1874 and the holder of a royal warrant (not to mention enjoyed by James Bond in From Russia with Love). The secret to its success is adding just enough of the marmalade to enjoy the distinct, bittersweet tang without it becoming overpowering.
Makes one
Method
- Stir the marmalade together with the gin in the base of a shaker, until the marmalade dissolves.
- Fill the shaker with ice cubes, add the lemon juice and triple sec, and shake.
- Strain into a martini glass.
- Garnish with orange peel and a small triangle of flattened toast attached to the rim of the glass.
As prepared by Mickael Perron of The Lanesborough