Emergency Marmalade

2 days ago I discovered that I had run out of marmalade. Seville oranges are traditional but in the flurry of the panic buy I could only find ordinary oranges, grapefruit and lemon, so I bought lots of those. Then I back-tracked to find a recipe to fit them. 

The ‘Farmhouse Fare’ book was first printed in 1935, and like my grandmother and mother before me, it is the first I go to when caught out, or for ideas or just to have a read through. These are country recipes sent in to ‘Farmer’s Weekly’ by busy farmer’s wives, so this guarantees that every one works. Also, every entry has the name of the sender and their county. It feels like cooking with friends. ‘Marmalade, Emergency’ springs out from the contents page, (following on from Mangold wine and Marinated Pigeons). It’s simple and practical – no hand cutting the peel into fine slivers, just stick the lot through the mincer, although my mincer is the electric whizzer rather than the metal hand-turned grinder of my childhood.
Here’s the recipe, courtesy of  Miss E Lenton, Huntingdonshire :-  8 oranges, 2 grapefruit, 2 lemons., 10 pints of water, 7lbs sugar X2.
Soak the peel in the water for 48 hours, with the pips tied in muslin. Then boil for 2 hours. Add the sugar and fast boil until it jellies. 
That’s the two pans well on the way to jelling.

Only three minor crises occurred in the process, firstly when I discovered none of the fruit had any pips whatsoever, (but in fact it didn’t make any difference to the jell process) secondly, when realising that the 10 jam jars I had warming were never going to take the 30lbs promised and lastly when the shed door fell off as I wrenched it open to retrieve more jars.
But now I am proudly looking at 28 jars of chunky looking marmalade.
 Just no cupboard space to store them all.