APRICOT JAM

Apricot jam is a tasty compound with a gelatinous consistency made of the fruit in question, water and sugar. 

Apricot arrived in the Mediterranean for the first time thanks to Arabs in the first century AD, in fact its actual name derives from the Arab term al-barquq. However apricot is originally from China, in fact in central Asia it was already cultivated since 3000 B.C., it is a spontaneous and very resistant tree which grew even in adverse conditions such as on the Himalayas around 3000 meters of altitude.

According to others it arrived in the Mediterranean thanks to Alexander the Great, who brought it back home from his conquests. In fact its Latin name “armeniacum” means Armenian apple. There are many legends which tell us that in these lands, at the beginning the apricot tree was cultivated as an ornamental tree for its beautiful flowers and for this reason during a war it risked to be cut down for the wood, but it saved itself from this sad destiny giving in one night splendid fruits of a beautiful golden color.

Jam is the name used to identify all fruit based preserves, whereas the term marmalade, often used in our language as a synonym, is used only for citrus fruits based products.

The production of this sweet sauce is very ancient, it is already mentioned in the cookbook of the Roman writer Apicius, who told us that in the fourth and fifth century Greeks boiled quinces together with honey in order to obtain a sweet spreadable mixture. 

A rudimentary jam was also appreciated by Romans who produced it by mixing fruit, grape must, raisin wine and honey. 

For the use of sugar instead we must wait for the Middle Ages, which allowed to obtain a result more similar to the ones we can taste today.

It is in fact in this period that marmalade was invented and there are many legends about its origin. The birth of orange marmalade is attributed to queen Catherine of Aragon, who after her marriage with the king of England Henry VIII, feeling the lack of the fruits of her homeland, created this sweet compound in order to taste them in her new home as well.

Another legend instead attributes the creation and the name to the duchess Maria de Medici, who after her marriage and the following transfer to France with her husband Henry IV, began to suffer from a lack of vitamin C. In order to solve the problem, her doctor ordered a cure made of the best citrus fruits of Sicily, at that time however it was not easy to keep fruit for the time of such a long journey, therefore in order to solve the problem they prepared glass jars with citrus fruits and sugar, on which there was the writing “for sick Maria” which in French was misinterpreted as “marimalede“.