Orange Marmalade

I forgot to tell the waiter to “hold the marmalade.”

I was sitting outside at a café in the 6^th Arrondissement in Paris on the last day of my trip. As I was people watching on a busy Tuesday morning, my café au lait and baguette arrived at the table along with accompanying ramekins of butter and marmalade.

I have a preference for the savory over the sweet on most days. Jams, jellies, and marmalades feel cloying on my tongue, overpowering the food they are accompanying. As a child, I was always polite when asking for my lunch. “Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly please?” It got a good laugh from the adults in the room, but I didn’t know what the fuss was about. I wanted what my older brothers were having, except none of that disgusting jelly.

My Paris café choices last week were an adult variation on my childhood sandwich orders. “Can I have the baguette with butter and marmalade without the marmalade please?” I wanted what the Parisians were having, except none of that orange stuff.

But the waiter hadn’t asked my preferences that morning and I had forgotten to make my wishes known. My plate arrived with a lightly toasted baguette, sliced in half along the top so each long golden piece had a top and a bottom instead of one with a tasty top and the other with the disappointing bottom– why had I never thought of that? Accompanying the bread were dainty little white dishes of butter and marmalade looking beautiful on the plate.

Perhaps it was being in Paris. Or the sight of that perfect baguette. Maybe it was the prospect of an entire day of just walking. No schedule, no museums. Just exploring the city and hoping to get a little lost, find some surprises, and eat some good food. Whatever it was, decades of behavior and preferences went ignored as a little voice in my head urged me on. Just try a little. Everyone around you is eating it. It’s already on your plate. Do it.

I dipped my knife in the glistening orange concoction, with bits of deep orange rind threaded throughout, and spread a tiny dab on the very end of my baguette. Small steps.

I took a tentative bite. The sharp sweet flavor accentuated by the bitter orange peel surprised my tongue as I chewed slowly.  I looked down at the ramekin.  

Oh, that’s not enough.

I ate the baguette, all the butter (it wasn’t that much, truly), and every last bit of orange marmalade, scraping the porcelain ramekin in what I am sure was a display of atrocious table manners. Look at that gauche American.

As I walked the streets of Paris after my surprisingly tasty breakfast, I regretted having no remaining mornings to sit at cafes and order the tartine (toasted or plain baguette) with the butter and marmalade. What a missed opportunity; I had wasted the previous three days! I wondered what inspired that little voice urging me to taste something I was sure I disliked.

I am not sure why marmalade seems such a delight now. I know our tastes change over time. Age and the foods we do choose to eat can affect the sensitivity of our taste buds. Ignoring the age factor (I will always ignore the age factor), I like to think I have a better sense of good food than when I was younger. Gone are the days when my eight-year-old self thought Twinkies were the ultimate treat. Perhaps my tongue is simply more appreciative of the subtle contrast and balance of sweet and bitter and savory.

Maybe it’s a good idea to revisit assumptions of what we like and dislike on a regular basis? Will the Brussels sprouts that tasted oh so disgusting to your ten-year-old self be absolutely delicious to the adult you? Will an action film hit the spot now when once upon a time only romantic comedies would do?

In science, it’s a regular thing to challenge a belief, investigate a presumption, and scrutinize a premise. Scientists devise their experiments, conduct investigations under controlled conditions, get the answers, and move on. But I don’t live in a lab and the conditions around me are anything but controlled (oh, but I wish!). Things are constantly changing. My marmalade experience tells me that I might benefit from questioning the presumptions and beliefs I made at earlier times, by a younger me. I think I have taken my likes and dislikes for granted in such fundamental ways that a host of possible experiences and enjoyments are off my radar screen.

Last week, a person in an online writing seminar I attended recommended a great new science fiction book. I didn’t write the title down. I don’t care for science fiction. But what if I do? What if a reading of Asimov in high school wasn’t a good test? What if it was a bad week, or I was annoyed at the assignment, or my tastes have changed?  What if I would love delving into sci-fi and other forms of speculative fiction now?

When I go clothes shopping with my daughter I will sometimes hold something up for her from the rack and she’ll give me a definitive “no” and I will say, “Try it. You never know what it will look like on, and your tastes may change.”  I hardly ever take my own advice. Is there a color or a style I should be wearing that I automatically dismiss because it didn’t look so great twenty years ago?

It's nice to be at point in life where I am comfortable in choices and what “fits” but my marmalade experience has opened a little window into the benefits of testing things sometimes. After all, I am always changing. Why wouldn’t my tastes and preferences change too?

It may also be that it’s just the mix and match, the combinations that matter. For a country with such a refined and storied culinary history, known for rich sauces and often-complex techniques and steps, the French eat a surprisingly simple breakfast: a tartine with butter and marmalade, along with a cup of coffee and perhaps a small glass of juice. But maybe that’s the point. You can enjoy the rich and the complex if you start your day with something simple. I also realized last week that the marmalade ups the ante. It makes something special of the bread and butter. It is said the first marmalade was the result of efforts to make bitter Seville oranges edible after long months at sea. For my savory preferences, the bitter rind and sharp/sweet taste is the perfect foil for the rich bread and butter. Maybe on its own, or on something sweeter, or god forbid, paired with peanut butter, it would have been a disappointment. I got all the elements right at the café that morning in Paris.

It’s hard to know when everything will align and something will taste so good, fit so well, be such a wonderful experience. Some trial and error is surely needed. And not everything on my list needs a revisit. But maybe some time in the future I will try on that lime-green dress with the ruffles along the side. Or taste a bit of crème brûlée with fruit on the top instead of opting for the wonderfully simple plain version I love so much. Or even read a sci-fi book on a rainy Saturday.

Here’s to orange marmalade. And a grateful thank you to the waiter who didn’t think to ask.