Topic: Marmalade, jelly, & butter

A listener in a jam asked what differentiates marmalade from jelly and butter.

Marmalade is a clear, sweetened jelly in which pieces of fruit and fruit rind are suspended. Suspend your disbelief as we explain the origin of marmalade: it has nothing to do with Mary Queen of Scots and some jelly-like cure for the malade de Marie; marmalade was borrowed into English from Portuguese and has ancestors in the Portuguese word for "quince conserve" and the Greek word for "honey apple."

Jelly, with a Latin ancestor in the verb meaning "to congeal; freeze," refers to the fruit product made by boiling sugar and the juice of fruit containing pectin.

Then there's butter. The Greek ancestor of butter translates roughly as "cow cheese;" the original butter named "the solid emulsion of fat globules, air, and water made by churning milk or cream and used as food." Of course butter still has that sense, but it is also used for other creamy food spreads, especially those made with ground roasted nuts, such as peanut butter.

Has the distinction between the terms begun to jell in your mind? Butters are creamy, marmalades tend to be chunky, and jellies are notable for their gel. Yes, it is the consistency (as much as cooking methods or ingredients) that determines the label for these edible spreads.

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