Keiller's marmalade is a Scottish marmalade, believed to have been the first commercial brand made in Great Britain. It was first manufactured by James Keiller in Dundee, Scotland, later creating James Keiller & Son, a brand name which became iconic in the 18th and 19th centuries, and has been sold several times.
History
According to a legend, in the 18th century, James Keiller on speculation bought a Spanish ship's cargo that included Seville oranges when the ship sought refuge from a raging storm. The ship had started its journey in Seville but the delay caused by the storm had made the oranges less fresh than they ought to have been. The bargain gave his mother, Janet, the opportunity to manufacture a large quantity of marmalade by boiling the bitter oranges with sugar.
The true story is that Marmalade had existed in Spain and Portugal since at least the 15th century and a Scottish recipe for orange marmalade appears in "Mrs McLintoch's Receipts (sic)" of 1736.[1]
In the 1760s, Keiller ran a small confectionery shop producing jams in Seagate, Dundee. Janet Keiller's main modification to the recipe in 1797 may have been the addition of thin strips of orange rind, creating peel or "chip" marmalade. The peel was thought to aid digestion, but the pith and much of the fiber was discarded. The consistency was also changed, from its former solid form (akin to quince jelly), to a spreadable semi-liquid form, and only at this point did it begin to be placed on toast (especially morning toast).[2]