Orange and Lemon Marmalade for the Trail
Whole oranges, one lemon, sugar, and time. Cook it at home, carry it in a squeeze tube.
- calories
- 180
- weight
- 2 oz
- cal / oz
- 90
- protein
- 1 g
- serves
- 12, scales
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 30 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Snack
- No cook
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Oranges | 2 lb, whole | unwaxed, thin-skinned; peel and all go in |
|---|---|---|
| Lemon | 1 whole | pectin and acid, not just flavor |
| Granulated sugar | 2 lb | weight for weight with the fruit |
| Water | 1 cup | only to start the pot at home |
Method
- At home: scrub the fruit, halve it, and pull the seeds. Tie the seeds in a scrap of cheesecloth. They hold most of the pectin.
- Slice the oranges and lemon thin, peel included, and put them in a heavy pot with the sugar, the water, and the seed bundle.
- Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the peel goes soft and translucent and the syrup sheets off a cold spoon. Roughly 60 to 90 minutes. Pull the seed bundle.
- Cool, then load into 4 oz squeeze tubes or a small screw-top jar. Chill nothing; the sugar does the preserving.
- In camp: squeeze onto tortillas, crackers, oatmeal, or straight into your mouth. No heat, no water, no pot.
This is home preserving turned into trail food. The whole fruit goes in, peel and pith and all, which is the point: the peel carries the bitterness that keeps two pounds of sugar from tasting like nothing, and the seeds and pith carry the pectin that sets it. Skip the seed bundle and you get syrup.
Sugar at roughly one-to-one with fruit is what makes it shelf-stable. That is a preservation ratio, not a sweetness preference, so cutting it costs you keeping time. Cooked at home and packed in squeeze tubes, it needs no stove, no water, and no cold in camp, which is why it earns its two ounces on a morning when everything else is dry.
Packing
Squeeze tubes beat jars. No glass, no lid to lose, and you can push the last of it out with your thumb. A full tube holds about four servings and will not weep sugar into your food bag the way a loose jar lid will.
Variations
- Cut the sugar to 1.5 lb for a looser, sharper spread that still keeps, but eat it inside a week.
- A split vanilla bean or a stick of cinnamon in the pot changes it without adding weight.
- Stir a spoonful into hot water at camp for a sweet-sour drink.
https://savoriurbane.com/dulceata-de-portocale-cu-lamaie-reteta-italiana-traditionala