Marmalade

Rain and mud underfoot did nothing to spoil the day at Dalemain House near Penrith, Cumbria which has an annual Marmalade festival. I enjoyed most of tastings. The categories for the competitions are Aritsans, Clergy and Peers, B and B and hotels A Family affair, Dark and Chunky. The Inventive section had ones with strawberry and even lavender. A 'Merry' category has lots of booze in it and also a Seville Orange section.

I met the two ladies who have set up http://www.jamjarshop.com/ for all the jam jars you could need. They have also started the http://www.jamguild.com/ with Pam Corbin wife of Hugh Ferneley-Whittingstall as the patron. She ran Thursday Cottage Jam company for quite a few years so knows what she is talking about.

I saw the judges had a drink of water inbetween tastings, if I had tried this maybe I could have managed more. Plastic spoons were supplied for tasting so you could work round them all if you wished. Please do not double dip and please put dirty spoons in the basket.

Clear with fine rind looked like someone had done some exceptionally fine even knife work on the peel. So clear you could see through it, the colour of pale straw. The darker marmalades were from amber to almost coral and as dark as sienna and mixed spice. Even darker ones were orange red, a chilli red and orange and even some apricot shades as well. Some had little peel and some were so dense with it you could not see any jelly. Thick cut varied from very thick to nearly thick. Some thick cut was all peel and very little jelly.

One entry even had seville oranges grown in Afghanistan with the marmalade made in England.

There was a battle of the ashes with Australian entries at one end of the table and English entries at the other. It looked very competitive from where I was standing. The prize to be returned to OZ is two wooden spoons.

There is also a label competition for the best label on the jar. I note the one that came second had young brothers on it in the family entry section with photos of them both.

I met one of the judges who was a food buyer for Fortnam and Masons. He was most interesting in telling me how they work with small suppliers to make sure of the quality of the products they sell. The company make the marmalade receipe of the best in show and it will be in their store in Piccadilly London.

I did not put my seville orange marmalade in the show as this year for some unknown reason it was a bit cloudy. Each of the entries were marked out of 20 and had comments. I took note of all of them. Cloudy looked OK really.

The marmalade orange tang lingered in my mouth all day-delightful.