It's been a while since I covered alternative jams, spreads, butters, and such, so I thought I'd explore this topic today. Previous posts about these types of things include the ones on January 20, 2018 (unusual seed and nut butters), November 23, 2016 (rose hip and plum butter), and May 22, 2015 (apple, pumpkin, mixed berry, and jalapeno jams/spreads). This week's post will discuss the lime and orange flavors of Rose's marmalade, the Crofter's mango spread, and the Simon Fischer apricot butter and prune butter.
Readers may be curious, as I was, about the distinctions between butters, spreads, jams, jellies, marmalades, etc. It appears that there are some differences in the exact definitions, but basically, jam, jelly, marmalade, and preserves are closely related, since they all involve cooking up fruit with sugar to make a viscous, spreadable treat. Jams are made from cut up pieces of fruit mixed with sugar. Jellies, though, are made only with fruit juice and sugar. Preserves are made with whole or pieces of fruit in a gelled syrup. Marmalade is a subtype of preserves that's made with citrus fruit, and the rind is used, too. Conserves are a subtype of a jam, mixed with other ingredients, such as coconut, nuts, or raisins. Spreads and butter appear to be made from nuts or seeds, or are made from processed fruit that doesn't fit into the other categories.
Rose's is the oldest of the companies whose wares I tried. It was started way back in 1865, by Lauchlan Rose. Rose's first big hit was their lime juice, which was one of the first concentrated fruit drinks. It was also the first lime juice that was non-alcoholic, which made it more widely marketable. Of course, fighting scurvy helped Rose's sales, since lime juice was both more easily preserved, and contained adequate amounts of Vitamin C. Rose's started selling their lime marmalade in the 1930's. (I'm a little puzzled why this date is vague, even on the official company website--no one recorded the exact date they rolled out this hugely popular product?!) Unfortunately, the company's main London manufacturing facility was destroyed by bombing during World War II, forcing Rose's to relocate to St. Albans in Hertfordshire. The ownership of Rose's is convoluted. The lime juice line was bought out by Schweppes in 1957, and that eventually became Cadbury-Schweppes. However, in 2008 Keurig Dr. Pepper bought them out. Meanwhile, the marmalade part of Rose's is currently owned by the Hain Daniels Group. Except that the copyrights and trademarks are owned by the Mondelez International Group. And in other countries some other companies are licensed to produce Rose's products. Anyway, alternate flavors of Rose's marmalade are lemon, lemon & lime, and grapefruit.
Simon Fischer is a brand of the Solo company. Which in itself is a common name for Sokol & Company. Sokol was begun by John A. Sokol, who was originally from the city of Pilsen in Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. (Pilsen is also the home of the very popular Pilsner beer style.) Sokol started his company in 1907, in Chicago, Illinois. Originally the firm marketed coffee, tea, and spices. Sokol had a background in coffee, but the Mexican Revolution had ended his plantations down there. Since then Sokol/Solo has expanded, and now makes various products under the Solo, Baker, Borden, Chun's, and Simon Fischer brands. These products include cakes, pastry fillings, marshmallow creme, nut paste, spreads, and butters. Also, this company is not affiliated with the Solo cup company, which I've learned is considered to be synonymous with the U.S. due to party scenes featuring the signature cups in many American movies.
Finally, Crofter's is the baby of the bunch, since it's only been around since 1989. Gerhard and Gabi Latka, both Germans, moved to Ontario, Canada and started the business. Like many of the companies I talk about, Crofter's is extremely concerned with being organic and earth-friendly. Crofter's products are all spreads of one sort or another. In fact, one of their lines, the Biodynamic Line, is proudly touted as being organic, non-GMO, fair trade, regenerative, and using good animal welfare parameters. (The flavors of the spreads in this line are apricot, strawberry, and blueberry.) The Just Fruit Line, which includes their Seville orange, raspberry, and blackberry flavor spreads, as the title suggests contains no sugar, with grape juice added for additional sweetness. The final spread line is their Premium Spreads, which are their wild blueberry, strawberry, and the mango spreads.
1) Rose's lime marmalade: Yellow color. Had this both plain, and on a Thomas's English muffin, as I did with all of these selections. Both ways were positive, as the marmalade was nice and tart. Tasty.
2) Rose's orange marmalade: Orange color, obviously. As with the lime kind, tiny pieces of the fruit were visible throughout. This one was good, but not quite as tasty as the lime one. Perhaps a tad blander. Which is a little surprising, since I generally prefer eating oranges to limes.
3) Simon Fischer apricot butter: Reddish-orange hue. Very apricot-y in flavor. Very good--probably my favorite of the bunch. However, it was so sweet that maybe it would have become cloying if I ate a lot of it at one time.
4) Simon Fischer lekvar prune butter: Dark brown color. Lekvar is a Central/Eastern European style of jam, which is traditionally coarse and thick. This one was sweet. But only solid--not as good as the apricot kind, or the Rose's ones. Mediocre, but not great. (I should mention that other tasters disagreed with me, and liked this one the best.)
5) Crofter's mango spread: Yellowish-orange color. Alright, but weakest of the five kinds. Rather bland. Doesn't "pop" with a tart or sweet flavor. Certainly not terrible, but nothing very special.
In summation, then, all of these were at least okay, and some were very good. So folks who are a little tired of their regular grape jelly might want to try these for a nice change of pace. And perhaps create a PB & M sandwich, or PB & AB, PB & LPB, etc.
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