Mad for Marmalade at Fort York

I'm going to be doing a talk with tastings about the Persian marmalade tradition this coming Saturday, February 19 at the fourth annual Mad for Marmalade, Crazy for Citrus!, presented by the Culinary Historians of Canada and Fort York. It runs from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Fort.

The entrance fee ($43 for members, $45 for non-members) includes:

• a historical lecture
• your choice of workshop
• tastings and a wonderful marmalade-themed lunch of historical recipes
• tours of the 1800-vintage working kitchens at the Fort (where I took the photo of marmalade being cooked on an open hearth, above)
• a marmalade marketplace with various raffles or door prizes

But – let's face it – the main attraction is the chance to mingle all day with a roomful of canning aficionados as geeky as you are.

The keynote presentation, by 19th‐century Ontario social historian Joyce Lewis, is titled "The Bells of St. Clements: a History of Citrus in 19th‐Century Ontario". Besides my session on Persian marmalade, there are eight other workshops to choose from, most of which include tastings or hands-on cooking demos:

• Pig Bladders & Brandy: Evolution in Sealing Techniques with Mya Sangster (a favourite of mine, with hands-on work in sealing jars by traditional methods using pig bladders, sheep suet, brandy and beeswax)
• Mrs King’s Marmalade with Carolyn Blackstock
• Judging Marmalade Quality with Pat Crocker of Riversong Herbals
• Pudding, Pond, Sussex with Rosemary Kovac (a lesson in historical cookery with marmalade)
• Marmalade with Asian Twists with Shirley Lum of A Taste of the World Tours
• Tomato Trends with Janet Kronick of Dundurn National Historic Site (did you know about 19th-century tomato mania?)
• Citron Peel Smackdown: Citrus Fruit vs. Watermelon with Amy Scott
• Candied Peel with baking teacher Jan Main of Danforth Collegiate
  

There's also a marmalade competition, now with five categories: Pure Seville Orange, Pure Citrus, Other Fruit, Vegetable and Marmalade Baked Goods. To enter, bring a 125 or 250 mL jar along with a $2 fee per jar to the registration desk between 9 and 9:55 a.m. (I'm going to enter a few spare jars, but I'm not feeling they're really champion quality; just a few things I have left around the house.) I'm hoping some of the Twitter crowd will put their handiwork out there to see how it fares in competition.