Spain revives tradition of making Seville orange marmalade for Queen Elizabeth  

Labourers pick oranges destined to be turned into marmalade in Britain

Credit: CRISTINA QUICLER /AFP

Jars of marmalade made from the finest Seville oranges will be dispatched to Buckingham Palace in a modern take on a lost royal tradition dating back to when the granddaughter of Queen Victoria married into the Spanish House of Bourbon.

A crate of bitter oranges from the gardens of Seville’s Royal Alcázar, Europe’s oldest functioning royal residence, was typically sent to England every year since the British-born Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg married King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1906.

But the tradition was lost sometime in the 1970s or 1980s.

Now staff at the Alcázar palace have now teamed up with the British embassy in Madrid, which is boiling down and jarring up a “blend of Spanish and British cultures” that will help to sweeten any bitter aftertaste from Brexit. 

While the first oranges in the early 20th century were made into marmalade on their arrival in the UK by Wilkin & Sons, this year the UK Ambassador to Spain Hugh Elliot is producing a batch himself before sending it on to Her Majesty back home.

The lost tradition was recovered thanks to Isabel Rodríguez, who on becoming director of the Alcázar palace in 2019 was told about the crates of oranges previously sent to London and decided that the practice was worth reviving.

Seville oranges have long been used to make top-quality marmalade

Credit: Tim Platt /Digital Vision 

Ms Rodríguez said she had contacted the UK’s honorary consul in Seville, Joe Cooper, and between them they relaunched the tradition last year during Spain’s nationwide lockdown due to Covid-19.

“We prepared some lovely boxes and he picked them up. He sent them on to the ambassador and from Madrid to the Royal Family in Britain. We were told they were delighted to restart the tradition,” Ms Rodríguez told the newspaper El Diario de Sevilla.

“This year, however, it was the consul in Seville who visited us last week to pick them up,” she added.

After becoming Spain’s queen consort, Victoria Eugenie visited Seville’s Royal Alcázar, a sprawling Unesco World Heritage Site that reflects Andalusia’s Muslim and Christian history.

She is said to have been delighted by the flavour of the bitter Seville oranges grown in the lush gardens and arranged for a crate to be sent back to her family in Buckingham Palace.

Victoria Eugenie’s time as queen of Spain was not without its challenges. The carriage she was riding in with King Alfonso on the day of their marriage ceremony was targeted by an anarchist bomb attack, which killed 24 people but left the royal couple unscathed barring the bloodstains from a dead guard on her wedding dress.

In 1931 she and King Alfonso left Spain for exile when the country’s Second Republic was declared.