Clifton Hotel in Naim's Three-Fruit Marmalade

My friend, Mary, recently gave me all of her Bon Appetit magazines. From the RSVP section of November 1991 issue, the Clifton three-fruit marmalade recipe caught my eye. I like recipes that have food memories associated with fun travels. The ingredients seem simple enough. I must warn you if you attempt this recipe, it's about a 3 hour commitment of prepping the fruits and stirring the pot.

1 grapefruit
3 tangerines
3 lemons
6 cups of water
6 cups of sugar

Ok, I did not have an orange so I substituted 3 tangerines for the one orange. I peeled the skins of each fruit with a vegetable peeler and was careful to get the colored part of each fruit. The peels were then thinly sliced. The tangerines and lemons were peeled and then thinly sliced into 1/8th inch slices and seperated. The grapefruit was segmented. Next time, I would not cook the marmalade in such a deep pot. The steam from the marmalade made measuring the temperature with a thermometer intolerable. I felt like I was being punished in some warp way. The upside of this recipe is it made the whole house smell like a summer. It took forever to get from 218 degrees F. I could never get it to the required 220 degrees F so I threw in 2 packages of unflavored gelatin to thicken the marmalade. Afterwards, I just stored the marmalade in tupperware in the refrigerator. If I were to make the recipe again, I would put the sugar in right away and cut the cooking and stirring time to under an hour.

Here is the original recipe as written in the November 1991 RSVP, Letters to the editor section of Bon Appetit issue.

1 large grapefruit
1 large orange
3 lemons
6 cups of water
6 cups of sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove peel (colored part only) in strips, from grapefruit, oranges, and lemons. Cut strips into smaller pieces. Cut off the white pith from the fruit. Cut fruit into 1/4 -inch-thick slices. Combine chopped peel, sliced fruit and water in heavy Dutch oven. Bring to boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until fruit mixture is very soft, stirring frequently, about 50 minutes. Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Increase heat and boil until candy thermometer registers 220 degrees F, stirring frequently about 45 minutes.

Spoon marmalade into clean jars to 1/4 inch from top. Immediately wipe rim clean using towel dipped into hot water. Place lid on jar; seal tightly. Repeat with remaining marmalade and jars. Arrange jars in large pot. Cover with boiling water by at least 1 inch. Cover pot and boil 15 minutes.

Remove jars from the water bath. Cool. Press center of each lid. If lid stays down, store in cool dry place up to 1 year. If lid does not stay down, refrigerate. Refrigerate marmalade after opening.

If this marmalade has not been processed in bath water, it will 1 month. Cover tightly and refrigerate.