Why is marmalade called marmalade?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “marmalade” appeared in English in 1480, borrowed from French marmelade which, in turn, came from the Portuguese marmelada. According to José Pedro Machado’s Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa, the oldest known document where this Portuguese word is to be found is Gil Vicente’s play Comédia de Rubena, written in 1521: Temos tanta marmelada Que minha mãy maa de dar In Portuguese, according to the root of the word, which is marmelo, “quince”, marmelada is a preserve made from quinces. Marmelo in turn derives from Latin melimelum, “honey apple” which in turn derives from Greek μελίμηλον (melimelon). The Romans learned from the Greeks that quinces slowly cooked with honey would “set” when cool (though they did not know about fruit pectin). Greek melimēlon or “honey fruit”—for most quinces are too astringent to be used without honey, and in Greek “mēlon” or “apple” stands for all globular fruits—was transformed into “marmelo.” The Roman c
