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Portugal’s Marmelada Tastes Nothing Like Marmalade (2018)
- Sharlin 7y agoUh. Now I’m wondering if the stuff we call marmeladi in Finnish is closer to marmelada or marmalade.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoOrange preserves or very thick gelatin?
- Sharlin 7y agoOh, apparently we overload the word marmeladi to mean both jam-like preserve and thick gelatinous pieces of candy, depending on context.
- jeltz 7y agoIt seems like it is closer to the Portuguese stuff, but not that close to either. In Sweden we use the same word for both the orange jam (plus some other kinds of jam) and for the gelatine candy.
- Sharlin 7y agoAh, right, we do too (not very surprisingly). Never really thought about the fact that marmelad jam and marmelad candy aren't really that similar, consistency-wise.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoThe Portuguese version reminds me of Goiabada from Brazil, made from guavas, which are also hard to eat raw. Must be the Amazon remix. Ha, just checked and Wikipedia says it is used as a quince substitute.
- atilaneves 7y agoHow are guavas hard to eat raw??? I've literally lost count of how many guavas I've eaten.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoThe skin is kinda gross, and there are many small seeds.
- atilaneves 7y agoSome people who don't like the skin peel them. I don't bother. The seeds likewise aren't a problem for me at all.
- eyko 7y agoRipe guavas are one of my favourite fruites. Unripe guavas are tart and hard to bite.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoUnripe guavas are very popular in South-East Asia, typically served with either dried prune powder (asam boi) or, in Thailand, chilli flakes.
- simtel20 7y agoGuavas are quite commonly eaten raw here in Brazil. Maybe you haven't let them ripen? Anyway as an amusing side note, as I understand itbin the Northeast of Brazil "marmelada" is idiomatically used to express that the speaker isn't going to be fooled[1], though its usage may have passed out of style right now. I had assumed it had something to do with a distaste for bitter orange marmalade (even though I have seen it for sale in supermarkets here). I guess there could be a story related to the Portuguese quince condiment instead. Hopefully I can find out one day. [1] learned when asking about the Margareth Menezes song called Marmelada https://youtu.be/LoNMVUaNmeE https://youtu.be/LoNMVUaNmeE
- 7y ago
- luxpsycho 7y agoSo, "Marmelada" and "Marmelade" are different words, and just look similar. They're basically _faux amis_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend).
- joaobatalha 7y agoIt seems that the etymological origin of Marmelade is Marmelada
- bewilderbeast 7y agoIn portuguese, quince is named marmelo, hence marmelada.
- Udik 7y agoThey're not different words, as the origin is the same. They're the same word, with a slight semantic shift from one language to the other. And frankly, quince marmelade is not very different, in preparation or use, from other types of marmelade. A similar case is the Italian "mostarda" vs the English "mustard"- two very different preparations, but both based on mustard seeds. A real case of culinary false friends is the Spanish "aceite", which means (olive) oil and is derived from an Arabic word, and the Italian "aceto", which means vinegar and comes from Latin "acetum" (related to the English "acid").
- edu 7y agoInteresting, in Spain we have _dulce de membrillo_[1] (quince cheese) which seems similar to the Portuguese _marmelada_. And then we also have _mermelada_[2] which is closer to the english marmalade. [1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_de_membrillo https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_de_membrillo [2] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermelada https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermelada
- arethuza 7y agoThe story here in Scotland is that "marmalade" was invented to make use of a consignment of bitter oranges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmalade#Dundee_marmalade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmalade#Dundee_marmalade
- eb0la 7y agoMy dad cooked dulce de membrillo every year :-) When you're boiling quince with sugar you have to keep stirring the paste to stop bubbles from forming. Those damned bubbles burn bad in your hands, so when you start you cannot stop until it all done.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoMaybe wear long oven mitts? I do that sometimes when frying foods.
- eyko 7y agoDulce de membrillo and (Portuguese) mermelada are the same thing. In fact, in Gallego, dulce de membrillo is called marmelo, much closer to the portuguese word for it. In Catalunya it's "codonyat" (the quince itself is called codony in catalan, and codoña in some other parts of Spain). I always thought that the English "marmalade" and the Spanish "mermelada" had a somewhat shared history, since in both cases, the portuguese meaning is lost and it picked up a similar meaning (jam type preserve). It's probably because the process of creating a jam is quite similar to that of creating a quince cheese, but with different fruits. Perhaps at some point, the word became a description of the technique, and not of the particular ingredients used.
- wtdata 7y agoInteresting, I always wondered when visiting the UK, why they have such a similar name for such a distinct product, now I understand. Also, I pretty much identified about the part of the article where they talk about comparing the colour and consistency. As a child I really didn't like the lighter coloured and/or less consistent marmelada, probably because I was used to the dark orange and heavily consistent one - as done by my family. It doesn't say in the text, but in order to be made consistent, it is left to "dry" at the sun (by a window inside the house) covered only by cellophane paper for several weeks.
- gerdesj 7y agoMarmelade in German means "jam". Orange marmelade (DE) means marmelade (en). With pronunciation differences 8)
- cyxxon 7y agoYes, but only in common usage of the word. As a real technical term it has to be called Konfitüre in Germany, as Bretain actually managed to get protection for the term, even if only they use if to the orange based stuff...
- wirrbel 7y agoThis mandate only applies to business use. I.e. if you advertise for, or label products, you must only use "Marmelade" for the strange british thing. I don't think I have ever heard the word Konfitüre spoken in daily-life, other on occasions where someone explained why Marmelade is labeld Konfitüre in the supermarket. Maybe this is a bit regional and up north they use that word (?). So if I was to translate a novel that features a jelly sandwhich I'd confidently translate it with Marmeladebrot. Apart from that, lot's of dialects have their own term for jelly, like Swabian dialect has Gsälz, and Baden dialect has Schlecksl.
- gambiting 7y agoI mean, in Poland "Marmolada" is exactly like the Portuguese variety, absolutely nothing to do with the British Marmelade.
- ivanhoe 7y agoIn Serbia, Croatia and Hungary this is known as kitnikes (pronounced as kit-nee-kez), from German quittenkäse (quince cheese)
- riffraff 7y agomight depend on the region, but when I saw it in hungary it was generally called "birsalma sajt" (literally "quince cheese"), e.g. this https://femina.hu/recept/birsalmasajt-receptje/ https://femina.hu/recept/birsalmasajt-receptje/
- ivanhoe 7y agoThe term I mentioned comes from Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) so it's probably very regional...
- salex89 7y agoLeggaly this Portugese marmelade is now defined as jelly marmalade. The definitions are basically the stuff our grandmas considered one or another. We also have pekmez, jam, marmelade. Pekmez should have the least added sugar and made out of chunks of whole fruits (mixed) cooked/melted. Jam has a bit more sugar, but I think it should be out of one fruit. Marmalade has more added sugar and can have more less desirable parts as core or pits. Jelly marmalade is just marmalade with more gelatine.
- ivanhoe 7y agoIt seems that everyone's grandma had a different theory on this, as I always thought that in Serbian/Croatian the "dzem" (jam) is made of a single fruit, while "marmelada" is mixed fruits :)
- dsego 7y agoNever heard of that word. In dalmatia I did hear about "kotonjada" which resembles cotognata and codonyat, which are mentioned in this thread.
- StavrosK 7y ago> The quince is inedible raw What? Says who? It's one of my favorite fruits. I am flabbergasted that someone would claim this.
- theobeers 7y agoMaybe it depends on the variety? I’ve eaten a fair amount of quince, always cooked. I don’t think I would enjoy trying to eat the kind that I’ve bought raw, though it wouldn’t be impossible to get down.
- pjc50 7y agoIt's really bitter by fruit standards, more so than cooking apples.
- disaster01 7y agoIsn't raw quince hard as a rock?
- tempguy9999 7y agoReplying to all replies, > Maybe [edibility] depends on the variety? / Isn't raw quince hard as a rock? quite likely. The beautiful ornamental quince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaenomeles_japonica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaenomeles_japonica is technically edible but hard and sour. You can see the fruits in the middle photo of the link - yellow, size of a large plum, and smell just amazing; really, if you ever get a chance to smell the ripe fruit, do. I understand they can be cooked to make them palatable. > It's really bitter by fruit standards, more so than cooking apples. Not bitter but sour (acidic). Anyway, happens I tried a cooking apple recently, am sure they're much less sour than when I was a kid. Anyway, compared to ornamental quince above, the ones you get in middle-eastern shops in london are much larger. Some examples, but not the right colour, can be seen here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince and are perfectly edible raw and unsugared (edit: size is larger, about the size of a large cooking apple but shaped like a ruby ball)
- StavrosK 7y agoYes, exactly. I'm only familiar with the variety that's common in Greece, it's harder than other fruit but not so hard that it's a problem. It's also not bitter, we have a different word for its taste. It's not as widely popular as other fruits, but I like it a lot and eat it often when it's in season.
- tempguy9999 7y ago> Related to but larger and more sour than a pear, the quince is inedible raw Not true, not inedible, and not necessarily sour. They are oddly dryish (think the opposite of a juicy pear) but I like them. Regarding the blocky confection, you can get it easily in london, in the right place, and I find it offensively sweet. Less sugar and it's be good.
- Nux 7y agoI was often fighting the worms in autumn to eat quince as a kid, they are more than edible. Quince preserve is one of my favourites, so good!
- ableal 7y ago> Less sugar Probably would not keep. The original idea is that you could store blocks like cheese or ham, without special packaging or refrigeration. I believe the reason for all the sugar is that bacteria don't "work" above some level of sugariness, and just the natural fructose is far from enough. "No sugar added" stuff has to be properly packaged and will spoil after opening. (Speaking of cheese, it's good company for 'marmelada'/quince jam, and takes care of the sweetness. Adding a slice of banana is not a bad idea either ...)
- tempguy9999 7y agoGood point. Hadn't considered that.
- Jun8 7y agoSeconded, in fact this is one of my mom's favorite fruit and I ate a lot of it (raw) growing up. We also have a curious way of eating it, using a spoon to tear off bite-sized pieces, since its flesh is quite hard.
- aritmo 7y agoThere are varieties of quinces, and some are much easier to eat than others. In general, raw quince tend to block your throat and is a choking hazard if not careful.
- southerndrift 7y agoSo what's the difference between marmalade and jelly? Is marmalade jelly made of quince?
- petepete 7y agoIn the UK, marmalade is almost-always a preserve made from Seville (bitter) oranges. Occasionally lemon or lime, but usually orange. Jam (jelly in the US) is made in a very similar process, except the fruit used in place of orange/lemon is something a little less-bitter; typically strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, apricot, plum (my favourite).
- dsr_ 7y agoIn the US, a marmalade is a preserve that specifically includes the shredded peel of the fruit, almost always a citrus fruit. [Sweet] orange is most popular, but lemon, lime, grapefruit and mixes are usually available -- and also imported Seville marmalades from England and Scotland. I'm quite fond of a cherry-orange marmalade from Florida. There are regional differences in usage, but generally a jelly is made from fruit juices, a jam contains chunks of fruit, and a preserve might be any of those things or contain whole or nearly-whole fruits.
- glormph 7y agoTangentially, I recently learned about the Austrian insult for (northern) Germans "marmeladinger" (marmelade-eater?). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmeladinger https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmeladinger
- cptwunderlich 7y agoIronically, the historically more "Austrian" expression "Konfitüre" hast become so rare and "Marmelade" so Common, that many Austrians think the former might be the German term. So the insult is out of fashion too. Piefke would be the go-to nowadays :) And "Marmelade" to means jam in general.
- bewilderbeast 7y agoPortuguese name for quince is marmelo, hence marmelada. Also, the husks and pits (what remains) of the quince are used to make a quince jelly, that we call "geleia de marmelo" (a liquid jelly): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.docesregionais.com%2Fgeleia-de-marmelo%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&u=http%3A... In English you have jam and jelly; in Portuguese we have compota which is jam made from fruit pulp, geleia which is liquid jelly with a consistency of jam usually made with the rest of the fruit like husks and/or pits (though the name is also used for other products like bee's royal jelly), and gelatina which is the solidified jelly.
- wil421 7y agoIn English we have jam, jelly, preserves, and marmalade. If you’re feeling fancy maybe a berry compote.
- Digit-Al 7y agoAnd "conserve".
- wil421 7y agoNice add! Had to look it up. It’s dried fruits and nuts turned into something “jelly like”. https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-jam-jelly-conserves-marmalade-87558 https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-jam-j...
- portuga 7y agoIn portuguese those would be: compota, geleia, conservas (preserved in sugar syrup) and marmelada. I think compote and jam are the same thing.
- masklinn 7y ago> I think compote and jam are the same thing. Jam is generally eaten with something else, compote can be eaten on its own or be a "base" e.g. you'd spread jam on bread but you'd eat compote with a spoon. Compotes are jams but in effect closer to mashes.
- __saykou 7y agoGreat know I want some Marmelada, and I have to wait until October :(
- gfelisberto 7y agoSo the actual title for the article should be: "UK Marmalade tastes nothing like the original Portuguese Marmelada."
- itcrowd 7y agoSorry to hijack your post, but I wasn't aware of emojis (flags only?) being available on HN.. there's no mention of them in the guidelines nor FAQ. What are the rules / guidelines on them? Are they (emojis in general) available in comments only or in titles of posts too?
- messe 7y agoEmojis are unicode characters like any other, you can use them almost anywhere. I don't believe there are any official rules/guidelines on using them on HN, but they are rare here.
- bitexploder 7y agoMine have been filtered out in the paste. They are Rare because they are programmatically filtered. No emoji in here ().
- bewilderbeast 7y agoSomeone managed to use them in a post below, I just copy-pasted them...
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- dang 7y agoHN is a plain-text site so we basically don't allow those. Software strips some of them out sometimes, but it's not the sort of thing we'd go for a 100% technical solution to. I edited them out of the posts in this thread. Interestingly, I don't think the meaning of any of the comments was affected by doing so. (We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776138. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776138.)
- 29athrowaway 7y agoThis article is equivalent to: "Spain's Jamon Tastes Nothing Like Jam". It is an apples to oranges comparison caused by translation issue. The English name for this product name is Quince paste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince_paste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince_paste
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- Elvie 7y agoI don't see the point of this article... Two things in different languages have similar names. so what? Portugal's Constipacao isn't English's Constipation Italy's Carrozza isn't Portuguese's Carroca Spanish Embarazada isn't English Embarassed...
- forinti 7y agoBut but but constipação and constipation are the same thing.
- Elvie 7y agoOne is a cold The other is well, constipation... if you say in Portugal you have 'a constipação' you mean you have a cold... https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constipa%C3%A7%C3%A3o https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constipa%C3%A7%C3%A3o links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold
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- forinti 7y agoI see. In Brazil constipação has both meanings, although it's mostly used with the same meaning as the English version.
- Elvie 7y agoWell, I have learnt something new today... In Portugal it would be Obstipacao or Prisao de Ventre
- andredz 7y agoIn Spanish constipado means a cold or having a cold but according to the DRAE constipación de vientre means well… constipation. Or you could use resfriado which means a cold but also contains the lexical morpheme/root -fri- (frío which means cold) so it might sound nicer and be easier to remember.
- tsimionescu 7y agoJust to add to the cultural variety, in Romania, the eastern end of latin influence, "marmeladă" is one of 3 common kinds of fruit preserves - made by boiling fruits with no or relatively little sugar (maybe 1:10 sugar to fruit) until they harden into a paste. Apricot and plums are the most commonly used fruit for marmelade. The 2 preserve is "gem" (jam), which is similar, but made with some more sugar (say 4:10 upto 5:10), and ending up as more of a mush than a paste - coincidentally, this is the most common way of preserving quinces. The third one is "dulceață" (which translates ad literam to "sweetness") which is made with 1:1 sugar to fruit and ends up with whole fruit floating in a fruity sweet colored syrup (sometimes the fruit are dipped in calcium hydroxide before boiling to ensure they stay firm) - usually for strawberries, forest fruit, apricots, even peaches. We also make a quince jelly called "peltea" (a Turkish word), a clear, stiff, extremely sweet gelatin. This seems to be the exact equivalent of Portuguese marmelada.
- oblio 7y agoAnd compot. Cut fruits in sugared water.
- tsimionescu 7y agoIn my family, compot was always consumed immediately, though I have heard others use it as a preserve as well.
- diego_moita 7y agoBy far, the best way to eat Portuguese marmelada is with goat cheese, tapas style. Slice both the ultra-sweet marmelada and the salty cheese into squares of the same size, stack them and stick a toothpick through them. In Brazil, when made with guava paste (goiabada) this same dish is called Romeo & Juliet, one of the best food names ever created.
- bernawil 7y agoLatin culture is about taking vegatables and turning them into bricks to be consumed with soft cheese. >called Romeo & Juliet, one of the best food names ever created The same format here is called Postre Vigilante "whatchman's dessert") In Argentina in addition to membrillo there's dulce de batata!
- jnty 7y ago"In 1524, Henry VIII received a box of “marmaladoo” as a gift from a Mr. Hull of Exeter. Although the name of the treat was glaringly and oddly misspelled on the box..." Was the concept of 'misspelling' a thing in 1524? The first dictionary hadn't been published yet!
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