185 pages; 135 x 220mm; illustrations; paperback

ISBN 1903018 03X £9.99

NEWS
This may be our financial saviour. It has now been published (in the same edition) by the University of Pennsylvania Press in America. It has been bought in large number by marmalade manufacturers, and the press (especially Philippa Davenport, the estimable cookery writer in the Financial Times) have embraced it with enthusiasm as they think up ways to keep the kitchens of England busy through the new year. It is a really excellent manual and history.
 

There's nothing like a nice regular programme to tame the calendar and to place each of us in a greater, celestial rhythm. Marmalade is the New Year, a new beginning, a vaporizing of all those clouded heads befuddled by pudding, whisky and mince pie. 

Anne Wilson is the author of the standard work: THE BOOK OF MARMALADE. This is a new revision, and for the first time available in paperback. Here you will find everything known about marmalade's origins, development and current position. The vade-mecum of a pot-stirrer, peel-cutter, and lid-twister. 

Prospect Books has always thought that its good to know what you are eating: food for the brain as well as the stomach. Just as a boy is a happier boy when he knows the name of his father, so the breakfast-spreader is more content if he knows that once upon a time it was quince not orange at the end of his knife, and that he would eat it as dessert, not prelude to the gladsome day. All is revealed in this essential text. 

And if you are unsure how to make it, turn to the recipes as the back: try GALOP from Australia, try transparent marmalade from the eighteenth century, try loads of them. 

No food is more entrenched in the national psyche than marmalade. Hillary took it to the foothills of Everest; Frank Cooper have in their possession a tin of their marmalade carried in 1911 to the polar wastes by Scott. In the early 1900s the Empress of Russia and the Queen of Greece, daughters of Queen Victoria, had regular supplies of marmalade sent to them by Wilkins of Tiptree.

Seville orange marmalade has been part of Britain's culinary heritage for more than four centuries and yet its history is still being argued about. Some say the first marmalade maker was Janet Keiller of Dundee; others claim that it was introduced by Mary Queen of Scots.

There is strong evidence that it may originate from Portugal where marmelada was made from the marmelo or quince. According to historian Anne Wilson, its origins go back to Roman and Greek times. Her book about marmalade, first published in 1985 has recently been revised. So buoyant were the sales of marmalade that in 1985, to give it greater media coverage, a group of marmalade manufacturers launched National Marmalade Day, March 10, which celebrated the 500th anniversary of the earliest port record of the arrival of Portuguese marmelada in London.

"Luxury" marmalades created for the premium gift market have taken their place alongside mustards and chutneys - and specialist marmalades with reduced sugar levels have become a big seller in health food shops. Whisky and brandy versions sell well to those who reckon that what you really need at breakfast is a taste of the hair of the dog.

Baxters of Fochabers were the first to explore the liqueur market. They experimented for several years before launching, in 1952, a dark and intriguing product matured in Speyside whisky casks for five years. You might think that adding a nip of spirits to jam might be an easy process but as Anthony Blunt of Elsenham told Anne Wilson, his own experiments were accompanied by an element of farce.

One day, the jam-boiling team was assembled in the low-ceilinged Boiling Room and the fruit and sugar were prepared. At the last minute, Blunt poured into the pans several bottles of brandy. All the staff gathered round to watch. The mixture was then potted off amid a certain amount of merriment. The next batch was prepared and, wincing at the cost, Blunt added several bottles of whisky. The air became filled with the fumes of alcohol and oranges.

By this time the first batch was just cool enough to taste. Everyone tried it. Sadly no one could detect any difference. Again and again the experiment was repeated. More and more precious Dot bottles went into the boiling pans. Red faces shone in thesteam. Blunt suddenly realised that not only had he run out of drink but also the staff, not to put too fine a point on it, were drunk!

Later experiments were more carefully controlled with the fruit marinated in spirit and Elsenham liqueur marmalade went into production in 1962. I must confess that lemon, lime, ginger and grapefruit marmalades do not tempt me. I like my marmalade made with Seville oranges, coarse cut so that the aromatic bitterness of the peel dominates the flavour. I like it to be opaque and dark in hue.

The commercial marmalade that comes nearest to my ideal is Frank Cooper's Oxford marmalade, first made in 1874. According to legend, a recipe was brought from a Perthshire manse by an Oxford don and presented to Mrs Cooper, the wife of a grocer in the city. She made a few pots which were immediately snapped up and such was the demand that in 1903 a marmalade factory was built opposite Oxford station.

Few people have time for breakfast these days, and the main market for marmalade is among people like me. Mrs Janet Cooper makes our marmalade every January and I relish the smell as it steams away in the jam pan. It is a luxury well worth preserving. According to Anne Wilson, some European Union member states want the term "marmalade" replaced by "orange jam". How right she is when she urges us to continue the fight to save the name and identity of marmalade.