Marmalade is a sweet conserve made from
fruit,
sugar and (usually) a
gelling agent. In British English the term almost invariably refers to a conserve derived from
oranges or from some other citrus fruit. Typically the recipe will include sliced fruit peel and will prescribe a long cooking time in order to soften the peel. Such marmalade is most often consumed on toasted
bread as part of an
English breakfast. The favoured orange variety for marmalade production is a large, sour, late ripening variety originally from
Seville in
Spain.
In some languages of continental Europe a word sharing a root with 'marmalade' refers to all gelled fruit conserves, and those derived from citrus fruits merit no special word of their own. This linguistic difference has occasionally been claimed as emblematic of the irreconcibility of anglophone and continental world views.