Marmalade
MARMALADE, n. One of many wonderful things that happened in my introductory French classes last semester was a moment when, after I had taught the reflexive verb se coucher, meaning “to lie down, to go to bed,” a keen-eared student asked in English, “Is this like that song?”
My student was referring to a line of “Lady Marmalade”—voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir ?—and the answer to their question, with a little inevitable meandering through the difference between “coucher” and “se coucher,” is a resounding oui. It is like the song.
It’s not the word “coucher” that interests me today, but rather the word “marmalade.” Outside the context of Patti LaBelle and/or the 2001 film Moulin Rouge, English speakers, if they use this word, likely use it to mean a spreadable fruit preserve made from citrus peels and juice—most commonly the bitter orange, but any citrus technically qualifies—that goes nicely on toast.
But why? Which part of this word has anything to do with oranges? Is it French? It’s got that French -ade suffix on the end, like “promenade” or “tapenade,” the latter of which is another tasty spreadable thing.
As usual, food words like this one turn up interesting connections. Marmalade didn’t originally have anything to do with oranges, and it is not French in origin, though English did borrow French “marmelade” with a little spelling change. The French, in turn, were talking about a food that the Portuguese call “marmelada,” which we could translate “quince paste” in English. A quince, in case you are not familiar—growing up in the United States, I never saw one in a grocery—is a fruit in the apple and pear family. They’re lumpy, yellow, fuzzy, and sour if you eat them raw, but delicious if you cook them. The fruits and the paste in question are both pictured below:
Not oranges, not marmalade.
This sweet goes all the way back to Greek and Roman antiquity. It’s eaten in Spain (dulce de membrillo), France (pâté de coing), and all over the Mediterranean and also in Latin America. It’s Portugal we’re interested in today because the Portuguese word for quince is “marmelo,” from Latin melimelum and Greek melimēlon, both of which mean “sweet/honey apple.” Quinces, as I mentioned above, are not sweet if eaten raw, but they are good if you cook them in honey, which is what the Greeks and Romans used to do. They were maybe also grafting apples onto quince trees? I don’t have a ton of sources on this part, plus what the hell do I know about grafting, but it might explain the apple/quince confusion.
Let’s get back to our fruit preserves. So marmelo is where we get “marmelada.” From there to “marmalade” takes another couple of centuries.
Brits start importing and enjoying quince paste in the 1500s—Wikipedia says it was a favorite treat of Anne Boleyn—and over the next century, they decide that any kind of fruit can be “marmalade,” and maybe especially oranges. But at that point, we’re still talking about a relatively solid thing that can be cut into slices. It takes another few decades for marmalade, even the kind made with oranges, to become something you can spread on toast. The texture and the idea that you’d eat it for breakfast are both the innovation of the Scots in the 1700s.
There is, in fact, a folk etymology for “marmalade” that its name comes from Mary, Queen of Scots. Supposedly her French chef used to make it for her when she was sick: Marie est malade. Like most folk etymologies, it’s cute but false. Still, you can see why people would make up a story for this word, which no longer has an obvious connection to the food it describes.
This fun little internet jaunt into food history does me very little good in my own fiction writing, but free research to a good home: if any of you all are writing historical romances with Scots, if your setting is eighteenth century or later—and if your characters ever make it out of the bed they shared in that one last room at the inn, whether the sheets were black satin or grey flannel—they can have marmalade at breakfast.
This week in Capital-R Romance, I actually did some reading in French. I’m as shocked as you are. Anyway, I am slowly making progress in George Sand’s very long autobiography Histoire de ma vie. At this rate it might take me all year. But there was already a cute, relatable moment where George Sand got mad at one of her pets (Jonquille [Daffodil], a baby bird she had rescued and raised) for interrupting her writing:
I was in the middle of my dénouement, and for the first time I got upset with Jonquille. I pointed out that she was of an age to feed herself, and that she had beneath her beak an excellent serving of food in a pretty saucer, and that I was resolved to no longer close my eyes to her laziness. (my translation)
Having pets has always been the same!
I’ve also been working my way through a couple of French history books in English, which always feels a little like cheating, but they are The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton and Paris Fashion: A Cultural History by Valerie Steele. Maybe more on those later.
This week in small-r romance, I read:
The Roommate (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Rosie Danan. An uptight New England socialite uproots her life at the chance to become roommates with the childhood friend she’s pining for, but said childhood friend goes on tour with his band the instant she arrives, leaving her alone in Los Angeles with a stranger for a roommate. That stranger turns out to be a porn star. As you might expect from this description, this book is sexy and funny, but it’s also surprisingly sweet and thoughtful. These two characters really genuinely like and care about each other, so much so that I ached for them when they had conflict. “And They Were Roommates” is also such a good trope because it leans hard into domesticity, and I loved the scene of these two characters shopping for groceries together. Fantastic banter in this, too. Content warnings: some difficult (but ultimately loving) family relationships, discussion of harassment, abuse, exploitation of and prejudices against sex workers, sex.
Give Way (bi m/gay m, both cis, contemporary, novella) by Valentine Wheeler. Small towns are a beloved trope in romance, but it’s rare to find one that’s as queer and inclusive and diverse as fictional Swanley, Massachusetts. Like any good small town in romance, Swanley is extraordinarily gossipy, so you can’t have a one-night stand without everybody knowing about it—especially if you’re a sixty-year-old retired member of the town council with a decades-long reputation as a ladies’ man, and the person you take home from the beloved local bar is not a lady, but the town’s new mail carrier, a 40-something Desi gay guy. This is a warm-hearted book about queerness and community and coming out late in life. Full disclosure, Valentine Wheeler is my friend and I read an early draft of this novella. Content warnings: sex.
In things that are neither Romance nor romance, I read The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark, an alternate-history fantasy novella set in a version of 1912 Cairo filled with djinn and automatons and magic trams. The setting is so imaginative and cool and the writing is wonderful. I really enjoyed it. The plot does deal with a supernatural creature that attacks pregnant people and eats babies, just FYI. (I’m always giving the content warnings I wish I’d had!)
As this is the first newsletter of the year 2021, I could set some reading goals, but I’ve decided not to. I’m gonna keep reading, and that’s enough.
See you next Sunday!
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