#Perspective: Marmalade-making is a man’s job

Until quite recently, I was blissfully unaware that the domestic duty of marmalade-making lay largely with the man of the family.

Looking back, I am surprised it has taken me so long to come to this conclusion, given my own family dynamics.

The women in the family, on the Stephenson side at least, have never been particularly known for their abilities in the kitchen.

Probably because the daily chore sucks all the joy out of it.

My mother is a fabulous baker but I have often heard her complain about having to make a meal.

I too have often wished we were more like Boa Constrictors.

I could serve up one large meal and the family would be satisfied for a few weeks.

Instead, I live with a pack of wolves – everyone is perpetually hungry.

The men, on the other hand, have more than a knack for the culinary.

My dad’s brother Kerry has long been the family’s chief marmalade maker, only I considered this more an oddity than the rule.

My father was for a long time an authority on fudge-making (until he gave it up due to his fast-expanding middle) and my cousin Paul was a professional chef, who quit the industry because it bored him to produce the same meals ad nauseam for people like you and me who “lack imagination.”

He is renowned for his ice-cream making abilities (and to be fair, anything he touches in the kitchen), inspiring the rest of us to occasionally challenge him to an ‘ice-off’ to see who can make the best ice-cream.

This is largely an excuse to eat obscene amounts of gelato.

And now my husband, who has dabbled in some fudge-making himself, has now waded right into the marmalade making enterprise.

Inspired by Kerry’s famous ‘Sticky Marmalade’ (a reference to the outside of the jar rather than the jam) while on a family holiday in the Sabi Sands, upon return he climbed his mother’s grapefruit tree and set to work.

I did not know this before, but apparently the freshness of the fruit is directly related to the firmness of your preserve (it’s all in the pectin).

The result was quite astounding.

A morning’s work produced 8 large bottles of delicious grapefruit marmalade, fit for a royal slice of toast. But he’s done the calculations and I cannot retire just yet.

Apparently, marmalade-making is done purely for pleasure and not for profit.

Of course it may be too soon to resign all the preserve making skills to the male gender.

My gran on my mother’s side won many a prize at the Royal Agricultural Show for her Lemon Curd.

It was sublime.

So I said to Piet, if he and Kerry would be brave enough to enter their marmalade into a competition of that magnitude (pitting yourselves against the best Tannies and Grandmas in KZN) then we would know once and for all who was the greatest marmalade-maker of them all.