Marvellous moment my marmalade took gold!
Leaking jars. Uncooked peel. And (horrors!) even a pip. Now, after years of failed attempts, LUCY DEEDES relives the . . .
We love a gold medal, don’t we? From the school egg-and-spoon race to the olympic decathlon, second place just won’t do.
I’ve always wanted to win a gold medal — and now, at last, I have.
All the sweat and the tears, the disappointments and the punishing preparation were worth it, because I defy you to find a tougher competitive sport than marmalade-making.
Which is why it was a genius idea of Jane Hasell-McCosh to start The World’s original Marmalade Awards & Festival at her home 14 years ago. Thousands may enter, but very few win the top accolade, and I have been stalking a gold award for several years now.
I never intended to get serious about marmalade, but some years ago, my daughter, Sophia, then working for Tatler magazine, wrote a piece about the marmalade festival at Dalemain in Cumbria. This wonderfully eccentric festival is held in the Hasell-McCosh family’s handsome manor house near Penrith.
That first year there were 60 entries; now more than 3,000 competitors from 40 countries send their jars to be judged.
There are categories for children’s and man-made marmalade, marmalade with booze and even bellringers’ marmalade. Funds raised go to local hospices.
Sophia told me to enter, so I posted off my second-hand pots with their hand-drawn labels, convinced that mine would be the best and I would clearly win the massive first prize of selling your marmalade in Fortnum & Mason for a year. Then I waited for my prize-winning phone call.
Well, that taught me. one jar leaked in the post (never a great start). The score cards arrived by post, with marks out of 20 and comments by the judges. ‘Jars should be filled to the top,’ read one. ‘Peel not quite cooked,’ said another. oh, the shame!
BUT there were carrots as well as sticks: ‘Nice flavour and good distribution of peel,’ — the harshness tempered with small encouragements.
I carried on posting off marmalade for the next few years, occasionally getting a silver award and, once the accolade ‘beautiful label’.
But those stern remarks persisted: ‘Inconsistent peel size’, ‘ undercooked peel’ and ‘contained a pip’.
Two years ago, my kitchen was inspected by the local authorities (five out of five; it felt like an A*), and my children gathered round, designing labels and talking about branding.
We tinkered with fonts and colours and names, and ended up (not that originally) using my own name. Hexagonal jars, silver lids and different coloured labels for the various flavours.
I applied for a stall at my local farmers’ market and they murmured that ingredients must be sourced from within 20 miles. A bit of a setback since, although Sussex now produces vines and
sparkling wines, nobody, to my knowledge, is yet growing sugar cane or Seville oranges.
I murmured right back about the stall that sells olives and was welcomed in.
This year, I entered the Dalemain festival again — in the Artisan class, since I was by now selling my marmalade in a shop.
This gets more technical: you enter two jars in each category, one to be judged blind. I lined up five flavours and told any pips to give themselves up immediately.
In mid- February I was in Waterstones in london when an email from Dalemain arrived saying: ‘Congratulations! You are a Gold Winner...’ Hurrah! My five entries had won two golds (Fine Seville and lime) and three silvers, and my phone buzzed itself off the table with the wittering from the family WhatsApp group.
In the Artisan category there is the bonus of being permitted to sell gold medal-winning marmalades at the festival. So, a month later, I trundled 36 jars of marmalade up to Penrith.
Nothing prepares you for the sight of the Dalemain rooms laid out with hundreds of sparkling golden jars. The light is reflected off glass and mirrors, there are goldfish in bowls and piles of citrus fruit, each entry sits on its neatly written score card with that year’s Best in Show already enshrined in its Fortnum & Mason livery.
The Artisan entries are laid out in the 16th- century barn where they can be tasted and bought. Who knew that three ingredients — Seville oranges, water, sugar — could be turned into such gems?
MY DAUGHTERS and I compete to find the oddest concoction — black garlic marmalade was right up there, and a startling Japanese entry of yuzu and Matchamilk, which had a creamy green top layer and a honey-looking base.
one competitor had put minilight bulbs under their jars, so they glowed as if Tinkerbell flickered inside. I pursed my lips at such showmanship, then remembered that I’ve done that on my stall and unpursed them.
The comments on my goldwinning Seville orange Marmalade read: ‘ Bright appearance with well-distributed peel. Good aroma. lovely set [lovely!] Delicious taste.’
The next time an old lady rebukes me at the farmers’ market because a jar of my marmalade cannot be had for three groats, I will flourish my gold stickers and that will show her.