In the matter of bottled condiments, sauces, walnut, mushroom, tomato
and other catsups, diverse pickles, and biscuits in endless variety
(of which, as of the bottled things, millions of dollars' worth are
exported annually), Great Britain is also preëminent; and what is
particularly commendable is that British products for export are
usually made as conscientiously as those for home consumption. You can
buy them in a Japanese village, and be as sure of their excellence as
if you got them in London.
Gladstone was a great believer in jam. He constantly urged his
countrymen to eat more of it and induced a number of them to go into
the manufacturing business. Some of these lost money because the thing
was overdone for a time.
While good jams and jellies are made in many countries, in the matter
of marmalade, Scotland has a virtual monopoly so far as superexcellence
is concerned.
Open an American cook book and you will find that the directions for
making orange marmalade begin with the words, "Take one dozen oranges
and four lemons," and end with the information that when bitter
marmalade is desired the bitter can be obtained by soaking the orange
seeds overnight and adding the water drained from them to the other
ingredients.
A marmalade thus obtained is better than no marmalade at all, but it is
far inferior to the British product, which is made of special varieties
of oranges.
Inquiries having come from firms in the United States, the authorities
in Washington asked Commercial Agent, John M. Carson, to find out the
secret of the superior Flavor of Scotch marmalade.
The information he obtained is so instructive that I must quote it, in
part, from the "Daily Consular and Trade Reports" of February 17, 1911:
British marmalade is produced from sour oranges and sugar.
The best-known firms use almost exclusively the Seville
(Spain) bitter orange, which has comparatively little pulp
and consists mainly of rind, the substance most desirable for
the making of good marmalade. Messina and Palermo "bitter"
oranges, although not considered as good as those of Seville,
are also used, but command a much lower price. With the
exception of a very few firms who buy and "pulp" oranges at
Seville and ship the pulp to England for preparation and
canning by English factories, marmalade manufacturers buy the
raw material in open market. London, Liverpool, Manchester,
and Hull are the principal orange markets. The grower ships
his product to his agents or to orange brokers or auctioneers,
and it is then put up for sale to the highest bidder on a
given date, in lots of scores, hundreds, or thousands of
boxes, very much like wheat and other produce are sold in
their respective exchanges, with the exception that in the
case of oranges there are no "future sales," nor are "reserve"
prices made.
Oranges being perishable, and their attractiveness and
freshness continuing for so short a time, the brokers accept
the highest bids made on the day of sale and never reserve the
fruit for future offerings. The sales are held regularly on
what are known as "market days." The character, quantities,
qualities, and nativity of the fruit are made known to the
trade by catalogue several days in advance, consequently the
auctions are always well attended and the bidding spirited.
The London Fruit Exchange is located in the eastern section
of the city in a large structure known as the "Monument
Building." More than $12,000,000 per annum is the amount
required to pay for the oranges sold in the English market,
the great bulk of the sales being by public auction. Apples
are sold in like manner, the aggregate annual sales averaging
in value $10,000,000. The great Covent Garden market, in the
heart of London, buys its supplies of fruits at the regular
auction sales held at the London Exchange, and in turn the
retail dealers are supplied from Covent Garden....
The law requires that marmalade shall be composed of orange
and sugar exclusively, and if any other substance is employed,
no matter for what purpose, the manufacturer is liable to a
heavy fine. It is generally conceded that the law is observed
by English manufacturers. Fruit preservers as a rule use
refined cane sugar, which they buy in the open market.
Orange marmalade has made Scotland famous throughout the gastronomic
world, which seems odd in view of the fact that the country is too far
north to raise oranges.
We shall see in the last chapter that the appreciation of bitter marks
a higher stage of gastronomic culture than the liking for sweets or
even for sour. The best orange marmalade is always bitter, and to
this it owes not only much of its agreeable taste but its value as a
tonic, the rind of the bitter orange being a valuable stomachic. It
is therefore not strange that although there are many makers of this
delicacy, the home demand often exceeds the supply, and that the new
crop always is eagerly looked forward to. It has been claimed, with
some show of reason, that British sturdiness is largely a result of
the national custom of having bitter marmalade regularly served with
breakfast.
Breakfast! That word suggests another great service Britannia has done
the gastronomic world. Nothing could be more irrational for normal
persons than the continental habit of eating only bread and butter for
breakfast and then having a second, heavier breakfast--_déjeuner à la
fourchette_--at eleven or twelve o'clock to interrupt the morning's
work in its full tide. Far better, both economically and hygienically,
is the English way--which fortunately we have adopted--of having a
substantial breakfast, and then nothing more till lunch time, the best
hour for which is one o'clock, as most of us know instinctively.
A healthy person ought to have a good appetite in the morning, after
a night's rest, and gratify it. Lunch should be light, and dinner,
more substantial than breakfast, should begin not later than seven for
persons who retire at an hour conducive to longevity--that is, an early
hour.