Marmalade Orange

The breakfasts of my childhood. Not mine but my parents.

Though by no means a Brit, my "colonial octoroon" father (a term Martin Amis used to describe Dad's veriegated ancestry), made fabulous weekend breakfasts. Eggs easy-over, bacon, sausages, potatoes, beans in molasses, fried tomatoes, kippered herring, rye toast smeared in butter with different kinds of jam on hand. My parents would devour these fry-ups and, as weekends were often long-walk-on the-seawall-days, my father would literally have to carry my mother to the car.

I remember the jams. I think we had an entire pantry shelf devoted to them. Strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, loganberry, mulberry ... Mom made all these jams at one point. But the one jam she never made (to my recollection) was the one that wasn't a berry. I asked her once if anything could be made into a jam, or was it just berries? and she said, Yes. In that case, I followed, Why is there no such thing as orange jam? to with my mother replied, Oh there is -- it's called marmalade. It's the orange-coloured jam you don't like because you find it bitter. I've seen the face you make.

Marmalade. When I hear the word my head leaves my body and I am afloat in a sunny morning springtime kitchen, adults moving slowly but purposefully, the heavy greasy air and the cool breeze from an open window, a spatula scraping at a pan. When I hear the word sung -- "Picture yourself on a boat on a river/ With tangerine trees and marmalade skies" -- as John Lennon sings it in the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" (1967), I hear a man proud of his son's drawing, which I believe is where the song comes from -- when Lennon points to his son Julian's drawing and says, Who's that? and Julian says, It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

Last week I noticed a display of differently coloured oranges at Save On and saw that they were "Marmalade Oranges". Oh good, they'll be nice and tangy, so I bought four. After putting my groceries away, I took the orange I left on the counter, placed it on the cutting board and quartered it. Expecting to get that tangy taste, I was met with a mouthful of seeds. Same with the next quarter. And the next one even more so. All told I removed thirty-two seeds from this one small "Marmalade Orange". If I could take the rest back, I would!