Marmalade is a sweet, tangy fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. The well-known version is made from bitter orange, but other citrus fruits such as lemons and limes can also be used. Bitter orange is mostly used in marmalade because of its high pectin content, which gives a thick consistency to its marmalade. In addition, the balance of acid and pectin is needed for consistency. Fruits with low pectin have it added to make the marmalade.
Historically, the term marmalade was often used for non-citrus preserves. Mango, pineapple, apricot, and cocoa beans, have been made into marmalade in those cases. In the 21st century, the term refers mainly to jam made with citrus fruits. White sugar (sucrose) is typically used to sweeten marmalade, but sugar substitutes, such as sucralose, aspartame, or saccharin may be used. Artificial dyes and flavouring agents may be added to marmalade to enhance taste, flavour, and appearance.
Originally marmalade was made from quince, and meant quince cheese. Mary Kettilby's 1714 cookery book, A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts (pages 78–79) discusses how to make marmalade. Modern marmalade has existed since the 1700s when the Scots added water to marmalade to make it less solid than before. The Scots were the people who made marmalade a breakfast item, and soon after the rest of Britain followed.
The word marmalade in the English language comes from French which came from the Portuguese word , starting with the Greek word that means 'sweet apple'.
The preserve has been mentioned in various books and is the fictional character Paddington Bear's favourite food. The 2014 movie Paddington slightly increased marmalade sales in the United Kingdom.
Origins
Early history
In the 1500s, marmalade was made from quince, and was imported to England from Spain and Italy. The quince jam or quince cheese, was a firm, sticky, sweet reddish hard paste made by slowly cooking quince fruit with sugar, and is still made today.
A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts
thumb|298x298px|Mary Kettilby's 1714 book [[A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery|A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts, pages 78–79|alt=The tan colored book of Mary Kettilby's, A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts, pages 78 and 79.]]The first printed recipe for orange marmalade, though without the chunks typically used now,
The Scots were the people who made marmalade a breakfast item. James Boswell and Samuel Johnson were given it at breakfast while in Scotland in 1773. In the 19th century, the English followed suit and began to eat marmalade in the morning. The American writer Louisa May Alcott visited Britain, and later described "a choice pot of marmalade and a slice of cold ham" to be "essentials of English table comfort". According to José Pedro Machado's , the oldest known document where this Portuguese word is to be found is Gil Vicente's play Comédia de Rubena, written in 1521:
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The Portuguese word comes from the Latin or "a sweet apple", The name originated in the 16th century from Middle French and Portuguese, where applied to quince jam. The English recipe book of Eliza Cholmondeley, dated from 1677 and held at the Chester Record Office in the Cheshire county archives, has one of the earliest marmalade recipes ("Marmelet of Oranges") which produced a firm, thick dark paste.
Folk
According to a Scottish legend, the creation of orange marmalade in the Scottish city of Dundee occurred by accident. The legend tells of a ship carrying a cargo of oranges that broke down in the port, resulting in some ingenious locals making marmalade out of the cargo. Since then, the city has had a long association with marmalade. However, this legend was "decisively disproved by food historians", according to a New York Times report.
A folk etymology asserts that Mary, Queen of Scots ate marmalade as a treatment for seasickness, and that the name is derived from her maids' whisper of ('Ma'am is ill'), though the word's origin has nothing to do with Mary.
Creation
Recipe
Common ingredients
Marmalade is made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. It can be made from bitter orange, lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, sweet oranges, bergamots, blood oranges, clementines, kumquats, navel oranges, citrus taiwanica, or a combination. Citrus is the most typical choice of fruit for marmalade, though historically the term has often been used for non-citrus preserves. in addition to the fruit also having tart flesh and rough skin. There is needed a balance between fruit acid and the pectin. Fruits with normally low pectin, like strawberries, cherries, and figs, have it added to make the marmalade a jelly.
Process
There are generally five steps of the creation of citrus marmalade: washing, peeling, pre-treatment for peel (de-bittering and sugar-dipping), mixing, and boiling. White sugar has traditionally been used as the main sweetener in marmalades, although sugar substitutes, such as sucralose and saccharin may be used. The choice of sugar substitute depends partly on heat stability, texture effect, and aftertaste.
Serving
Marmalade can be served at room temperature or slightly colder. Some bitter orange marmalade can last for up to 6 months after opened,
Citrus peel is a main ingredient of marmalade which contains not only numerous functional constituents but also gives the product a different aroma.
Some demand for healthier marmalade, like lowered calories, has been observed in some consumer groups.
Commerce
Production companies
thumb|Scottish grocer [[Robertson's|James Robertson in 1874|alt=A black and white portrait of Scottish grocer James Robertson in 1874.|227x227px]]
James Keiller and his mother, Janet, ran a small sweet and preserves shop in the Seagate area of Dundee.
The Frank Cooper Oxford Marmalade manufacturing business sold marmalade in 1874. It started out first for just for Oxford students, but the business expanded all over England and abroad.
Robertson's was founded in 1864 by James and Marion Robertson in Paisley, Renfrewshire. The business was known for making Golden Shred marmalade. Today, it no longer exists, and is now owned by Premier Foods, though they still make the same product Golden Shred.
Market
As of 2021, the international market for jams and preserves was US$8.46 billion. Global value has been projected to increase in the future with almost US$9.90 billion expected in 2027, with an average annual growth of about 3.5% between now and then.
The Canadian Food and Drug Regulations (C.R.C., c. 870) specify that pineapple or fig marmalade must be of jelly-like consistency, achieved by boiling the pulp of juice of the fruit with water, and a sweetening ingredient. Pineapple or fig marmalade should contain at least 45% of the named fruit.
Europe
In 1979, the European Economic Community (EEC) passed a directive regulating labelling of fruit jams, jellies and marmalades, which defined marmalade as a gelled mixture of sugars and citrus fruit's pulp, purée, juice, aqueous extracts or peel. Under the directive marmalade had to contain at least 20% citrus fruit of which 7.5% had to be obtained from the endocarp. The strict definition mandating the use of citrus fruits is said to be a result of British lobbying, even though in some other European languages of the word cognate with English marmalade, such as in German or in Italian, are commonly used to refer to other fruit jams, too.
The marmalade definition remained the same until 2026, except that in 2004 Austria and Germany were granted a derogation to allow fruit jams to be sold as Marmelade at farmers' markets. In 2024, the European Union, from which the UK had withdrawn in 2020, agreed to broaden the definition by allowing member states to permit the label marmalade for other jams, reflecting the interchangeability of the terms in many European languages. The new directive will become applicable in June 2026. To avoid consumer confusion, the label of citrus-based marmalades in the directive was renamed to citrus marmalade, in which the word "citrus" may be replaced by the name of the citrus fruit used, e.g. orange marmalade. The ingredient requirements for citrus marmalades remain the same as in the 1979 directive.
As of April 2026, it is expected that the directive could form part of the future EU–UK sanitary and phytosanitary agreement that is being negotiated under prime minister Keir Starmer's "reset" of EU–UK relations, extending the EU rules on marmalades to the UK. The UK government expects the possible agreement to come into force after mid-2027. Paddington Bear is now used on the label of the smaller peel ("shred") and clearer/milder Robertson's "Golden Shred" marmalade, in place of the previous icon, the "Golliwog", because it was considered racially offensive. The 2014 movie Paddington led to a slight increase in marmalade sales in the United Kingdom.
Other mentions
In Agatha Christie's 1953 detective novel A Pocket Full of Rye, the first victim of the murderer is given poison hidden in orange marmalade consumed at breakfast.
In Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility, an over-indulgent mother feeds apricot marmalade to her fussy three-year-old child who has been slightly scratched by a pin in the mother's hair. Austen in irony of this states, "that she could taste no greater delight than in making a fillagree basket for a spoilt child".
== See also ==<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description WP:SEEALSO. -->
- Murabba, whole fruit preserve
- List of spreads, the list of spreads
- Succade, candied citrus peel, especially that of the citron
- Zest (ingredient), citrus ingredient