Like a lot of people in Ireland (and Scotland , England and Wales ) I think that one of the essentials of any well stocked breakfast table has got to be a good Orange Marmalade made from Seville Oranges.
These beauties are bitter and highly aromatic and really leave the ordinary sweet orange in the ha’apenny place for intense orange flavour.

I made various enquiries about the prospects of buying some out her to make my years supply (they are only available for about six weeks about January and February ) and was greeted by blank faces.
A search of the internet told me that they had been intensely cultivated here in the Languedoc , and had been used to make a Bitter Orange Liqueur, the vestiges of which had been refined into Cointreau which still uses the Bigarade (which is the French word for the Seville Orange. )

This was not a lot of use to me now , and I knew I had to have my Marmalade fix so I managed to persuade my friend Clive Nunn – who is coming to see me in March- to track down and buy, and then freeze (they freeze excellently) some of these beauties in Kilkenny, (and thereby hangs a tale which Clive tells here )

Two weeks ago we were going to Minerve , one of the most dramatic of the Cathar battle sites , when the word Bigarade on a roadside poster caught my eye.
It turned out that in the village of La Caunette they would on the 26th and 27th of February have a Fete de Bigarade.
Surely, I thought, they will have some Seville Oranges there.
We attended it this morning , and I did manage to get a few Seville beauties (It is OK Clive, I still need yours , these will be for freezing for a Sauce Bigarade to eat with Duck Confit and to suspend over alcohol to make a superlative Bigarade Liqueur) (Eat your heart out M. Cointreau.)

But

Most importantly of all.

I was able to insure that I will no longer suffer from a dearth of my favourite orange.

I bought myself a Seville Orange Tree.