BACKLIST
NEXTISSUE THE GREAT
150
ISSUE GIVEAWAY
OUT ON THURS 13 JUNE
7 OLD FISHMARKET CLOSE EDINBURGH 031 225 5429
brasserie
‘1?// open seven days food served all day fri 8r sat
restaurant
tuesday— saturday 1900 - 2200
{fidfifl
FOOD
Cit—y of marmalade
5 Catherine Fellows gets her v fingers sticky in
: celebration of Dundee’s
5 800th birthday.
In a country whose culinary record is f hardly one to boast about, it is f particularly dazzling that one city
should have given birth to two manufactured foods of world renown. The ubiquity ofmarmalade — Dundee marmalade to be precise — speaks for itself. while Dundee cake was good enough for Gene Kelly to offer Leslie Caron in An American in Paris.
The contemporary picture ofthis 800-year old city and its food industry is ambiguous: a combination of moribundity and energy that is hard to reconcile. The most striking contrast is between the highly successful entrepreneurial past and the almost non-existent present of Dundee’s most famous company, Keillers.
One momentous day in 1797, John Keiller, owner ofa small grocery business in the city, rashly purchased several crates of Seville oranges from a Spanish cargo ship. The oranges were much too bitter and Keiller would have been left with light pockets had it not been for the ingenuity of his wife, Jane. She had been taught to make a quince preserve, or ‘marmalet‘, by her mother (marmelo is the Latin name for a quince. so marmalade is a misnomer). Jane Keiller decided to boil the oranges with sugar in the same way as she had the quinces and marmalade was born. It caught on and pretty soon, the Keillers had jacked in the grocery business to
pourtheirenergiesintotheirlittle
pots ofgold.
Very soon they were also exploiting their equipment, local produce and the seasonality of Seville oranges to produce red
1 strawberry and crimson raspberry
04l-554 5001
i L__
80Thc List31May—13June 1991
Ubiquitour Chip Wine Shop
Glnrgow’r Independent Wine and Spirit merchant
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Goodlellow‘s Dundee Cake made to an original recipe (0382 730181)
jam, and lots of boiled sweets. The distinctive gold-wrapped Keillers’ butterscotch became particularly famous. Keillers continued to expand until, by the late 19th century, it was exporting the name of I Dundee worldwide and physically E dominating the centre of the city
with its massive factory, which at its ‘ peak employed 3500 people.
But in 1951 a long succession of acquisitions began and the company’s identity was progressively undermined. Keillers was handed from Crosse & Blackwell to Nestlés to the Malawian
Okhai brothers to Barker & Dobson, and is now part of Robinsons. Not only are decisions no longer made in Dundee, but production of Dundee marmalade has been transferred to Manchester.
Now the only jam made in Dundee is the rubbery stuff that taxes the teeth in biscuits— apparently it leaves the factory in solid sheets much like plastic.
So. a story is all Dundee has left. According to one of the city’s largest
é bakers. Wallace Land O‘Cakes,
even Dundee cake is not much more than a myth and anything with split almonds on top can pass for it. But the genuine article does exist and. according to Master Baker and Head of Dundonian Traditional Trades Guilds, David Goodfellow of Goodfellow & Steven. the resourceful Mrs Keiller is behind this one too. Jelly marmalade with very
i little peel became popular with her customers. and finding herselfwith a 3 surplus oforange peel, she devised a cake recipe using spltanas and
_ A rum choice
Black Heart Rum and peppermint may not be the world's best known cocktail, but it made Rab C. Nesbitt the man he is today. So claimed TV star Gregor Fisher at last Tuesday’s launch at the Black Heart Bartender oi the Month Award in Glasgow.
The award, run in conjunction with The List, aims to promote bartending as a culture in its own right by highlighting each month an individual bartender who takes the craft beyond the mere pulling ol pints or shaking of cocktails in a distinctly Tom Cruise manner. Customers ol bars across the West ol Scotland area will be invited to vote for their favourite optic operators
who they believe play a special part in
Rab C Nesbitt with a rum lor yourmoney
their local community. The top ten nominees will be debated over by a panel of experts including members oi the UK Bartenders Guild.
Each month’s winner will receive a live star holiday for two in New York and will become an overnight celebrity thanks to an interview profile on The List's hallowed pages. Six bartenders oi the month will be chosen in all, with the competition running from July to December. (Alan Morrison)