In the run up to Easter Brexiter fury was aimed at the requirement for Marmalade to be renamed if we (re)align UK food labelling regulations with the EU; this would be for the addition of the word 'citrus' in a blow to UK sovereignty.
What, the hysteria ignored was that most brands already do this: 'Orange Marmalade' or 'Seville Orange Marmalade' & that is fine, as the EU allowed (and continues to allow) the word 'citrus' to be replaced by the actual fruit!
A myth, it seems.
'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. .... However, this legend was "decisively disproved by food historians", according to a New York Times report.'
@bodhipaksa @ChrisMayLA6 “The Scots are credited with developing marmalade as a spread, with Scottish recipes in the 18th century using more water to produce a less solid preserve than before.[5]
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.”
This is also from Wikipedia.
@peterbrown @ChrisMayLA6 You're kind of proving my point. Boswell's encounter with marmalade took place almost 25 years before the Keiller company was even established.
He does not say it was the first time either of them had had marmalade, and in fact he doesn't remark on it at all, suggesting it was commonplace. He does comment on other aspects of the breakfast, which were presumably new to him.
So the Keillers definitely did not invent marmalade, although they certainly popularized it.
@bodhipaksa @ChrisMayLA6 at no time did I even mention the name Keiller and I certainly didn’t suggest they invented marmalade.
But from all the references it does appear clear that Dundee brought marmalade to the world. And I can see no reason whatsoever to discredit the original story of the ship with the oranges. There is no alternative narrative.
It has always been the fashion to attack oral tradition and it is astonishing how often it is later found to be absolutely true.
@peterbrown @ChrisMayLA6 As far as I'm aware, the story of Dundee's connection with marmalade is that the Keillers bought a shipload of oranges and invented marmalade. (The ship probably happened. The invention didn't.)
I'd love to see a source for this alternative story that is about someone other than the Keillers, and would be very interested if you could share sources about the manufacture of marmalade in Dundee before their industrialization of the process.
@bodhipaksa @ChrisMayLA6 nope, no sources.
But more than once over the last 60 odd years I have been told the same story.
Oral tradition.
It’s a thing.
And it’s amazing how often it’s right. And since no other port is making claims and #dundee already had an important jam making tradition it sounds to me to be utterly believable and logical and I can’t understand why people would discredit it.
Just because of an American journalist and an English food writer?
It sounds very unlikely that on two separate occasions a ship laden with Seville oranges would end up in Dundee, and on both those occasions someone would "invent marmalade," so I'm afraid your oral version simply sounds like a garbling of the Keillers' story.
@peterbrown @ChrisMayLA6 The story is indeed that a ship ended up in Dundee accidentally, probably having originally aimed for Leith, and one of the Keiller women bought the cargo (probably in good condition — I doubt she would have been interested otherwise). The myth is that she invented marmalade, but it already existed and cookery books at that time included recipes for it.
It's quite possible, though, that in reality the shipment was ordered, the Keillers having planned to make marmalade.
@bodhipaksa @ChrisMayLA6 so I now have an update from local historical sources.
“The most reliable version I know is that a shipment of Seville oranges arrived at the docks and the person that had ordered them no longer wanted them. Mr Keiller who was a grocer at the time took them to sell in his shop, but unfortunately he was unable to sell them all. As they were going to spoil his wife suggested that she made them in to marmalade to preserve them, she already had a recipe to do so.”
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
Peter Brown
Bodhipaksa