Stan Kelly-Bootle: Note
that the English bottled fruit conserve, normally made from oranges, is usually
spelled MarmAlade, perhaps to avoid confusion with the Haitian town, MarmElade.
Who knows? The global vagaries in naming jams and jellies (UK Jelly = US Jell-O!
US Jelly = thin UK Jam!), and their spellings are beyond rational fathomage.
Jansy’s* spelling might possibly have been influenced by the Portuguese QUINCE
PASTE, spelled MarmElada...We found
the French verb, marmaliser, but used as mock English. Marmalize, to beat to a
jelly, has reached American dictionaries with US
spelling.
JM: You're right. We have a special
kind of hard jam which, when cooked with quince (Cydonia Oblonga" or
marmelo) is called marmelada. When the fruit is the banana it's named
"bananada", figs" are figada",aso.
Stan's "marmalis(/z)e" may be
related to one of quince's uses in schools several decades ago:
the beating stick ("vara de marmelo").
I still cannot imagine the look of Nabokov's
candied fruit jellies,though.
..............................................................................................
*- Anglophones might offer better information...Nabokov
himself explains what Russian fruit jellies mean, in "Breaking the
News"[ "She reflected that tomorrow, a holiday,
So-and-so would drop in; that she ought to get the same little pink gaufrettes
as last time, and also marmelad (candied fruit jellies) at the Russian
store, and maybe a dozen dainties in that small pastry shop where one can
always be sure that everything is fresh." ]