Page Mandarin Marmalade - June Taylor - 8 oz - California
Every year, we greet the arrival of June Taylor's marmalade creations with much excitement. And every year we dip our spoons and scoop up heaping tastes of the sweet-tart marmalades to a truly unusual and always delicious sensation.
Last year, we received a wonderful new offering from June: her Clementine marmalade. This year, she has decided to offer a Page Mandarin Jam. Personally, I never thought she would be able to out-do the Clementine, but she has - the bright orange Page mandarin is absolutely fantastic, full of the texture and flavor of what is often considered the most flavorful members of the mandarin family.
Page Mandarins are a cross between a Clementine and a Minneola tangelo. They were first produced in Orlando, Fla. in 1963. They are medium to small in size with a round shape. Their skin is a deep orange. The flesh is tender and juicy, rich and sweet, and they are also seedless. This fruit resembles a small orange, with a wonderfully sweet flavor.
June has secured a supply of excellent quality organic Page Mandarins for this wonderful marmalade. Loaded with thick cut chunks of rind and plenty of pulp, this highly textured marmalade screams out with flavor. Of course, June uses only enough sugar to do the job, and the bitter notes from the rind balance the sweetness taking the combination of sweetness, acidity, and bitterness to a most delightful level. I have a hard time keeping myself from eating it right out of the jar.
This June Taylor mandarin marmalade is a limited release marmalade.
Serving Suggestions
June Taylor Mandarin Marmalade is great for toast, scones or croissants, this marmalade also cries out to be used in desserts and savory dishes, and it makes a great glaze for meat or fish.
About the Producer
For June, everything starts with the fruit, or more accurately, fruits: she uses 50 to 60 different varieties in creating her products! Her fruit is organic, nearly all grown locally (in California), and she is passionate about high quality and excellent flavor, so if a particular fruit is having a substandard year, she will pass on it that season and try something else.
June has a relationship of trust with the farmers who produce fruit for her, and they understand her rigorous quality standards. She insists on small, completely hand-produced batches of her products. The process is involved and labor-intensive, but once you've tasted her preserves and marmalades, you may wonder why anyone does it differently. Even the lovely letterpress labels for her jars are applied by hand.
June specializes in heirloom and other forgotten fruits, those ignored by companies, large and small, whose product profiles are set in stone. The fruit is hand-cut and then cooked, quickly, to maintain maximum flavor. June adds only minimal amounts of sugar and only the fruit's natural pectin, basing her methods not on a formula but on taste and flavor, and so each batch is different. She would rather produce a soft-set marmalade in which the fruit shines through than meet an industrial, artificial expectation of how stiff it should be.
