All you need is clove

A recipe for Christmas clove pomanders (and a marmalade-apple tart)

Photo by Jaspreet Kalsi on Unsplash

If Christmas had a single smell, for me it would be cloves. But of course it doesn’t have only one. Christmas smells of warm pine needles, wood smoke, melting wax, and the nose-wrinkling sulphur from the pull of a cracker. That’s all before you even get to the scents that rise from the feast. On the food front, olfactory Christmas runs the gamut from the school-corridor smell of Brussels sprouts, the wet-dog-steaming-by-the-fire smell of gravy, and the smell that roasting turkey shares with a real ale brewery. (To me, a Marmite smell since the spread is made from brewery waste, but don’t reveal that to its despisers.)

And let's not forget the winter smell of oranges.

Well into adulthood, on Christmas morning my sister and I would pile onto the family bed to open stockings. A big breakfast tray of hot coffee, warm croissants, and chilled Buck’s Fizz was pressed into the middle of the eiderdown. Then we set to, drawing tiny packages one by one out of thick patterned stockings my mother had knitted. Taking turns, we’d rattle then sniff them and hazard an absurd guess as to what they contained. Thrust into each toe was one walnut and a satsuma. The citrus oils from the peeling that immediately took place to establish the end of the unwrapping ceremony filled the bedroom with the scent of oranges, that other enveloping Christmas smell.

After a brisk crisp walk, we’d return home to steaming wine spiced up with brandy, ginger root, sticks of cinnamon, a chili pepper and honey, curls of orange peel and cloves, the scent as warming as the brew.

Clove tree flower buds

Those cloves are the flower buds of an evergreen tree that can grow to 9 feet tall which originated in the Molucca Islands, the archipelago that lies east of Sulawesi, west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor. Clove farming, however, was first established on the east coast of Madagascar.

They’re unusual for how common they are to the cuisines and spice blends not only of India, Africa, the Near and Far East, but also of the Mediterranean and across the ocean in Mexico. Probably only black pepper is more ubiquitous. While from around 1500 BC they were traded along the Austronesian maritime network that connected Southeast Asia with South India and Sri Lanka, cloves didn’t much penetrate the west until centuries later and the arrival of European colonial traders.

The name derives originally from the Latin word clavus, meaning nail, which is what one looks like. In 1978, evidence of their use in the Middle East long before cloves reached Rome in the 1st century AD was found in Syria, in a burned-down dwelling dating to 1720 BC. They’re mentioned in the Ramayana, the ancient Indian epic text written around 300 BC. A single clove was found at the Batujaya site in West Java dating between 2nd and 1st century BC. Others of the same period have been dug up in the Mekong Delta in an area that was a trading source for the Chinese, then a little later in Sri Lanka. Cloves get a mention from our old friend Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, published in 77 AD. Until as late as the 18th century, cloves were part of European burial ceremonies. These days, 75 percent of production comes from India.

Travelling round Indonesia, I almost took up smoking, seduced by the apple-pie smell of the burning cloves in Kretek cigarettes. Cloves are always in my pack when exploring unfamiliar territory for any extended time, to chew in the event of toothache. Clove oil is an analgesic - though not recommended for anyone with blood-clotting problems, liver disease, food allergies, or immune system disorders.

Last week, at the drop-in centre and community kitchen that serves mouth-watering meals to vulnerable people in an area of central London, its inventive chefs brought together my two key Christmas flavours. Over baked-blind pastry shells they spread a layer of marmalade. They had made it that same morning from an excess of past-their-best satsumas delivered by a charity that rescues surplus food from landfills. On top of the marmalade was spooned a chunky coat of clove-flavoured apple compote. The orange confit waterproofed the pastry and brought an illusive citrus element to the fruit filling. Without question I’m stealing the idea, even if I may not make my own marmalade.

That qualifies as this week’s food recipe, because what I urge you to make for Christmas right now, to bring together what, for me, are the two best Christmas smells, is clove-studded oranges.

They’re known as pomanders and used as decorations that scent the Christmas air. They also make wonderful presents. In Victorian England, giving a clove pomander was understood to demonstrate warmth of feeling. Make them today and store them in an airing cupboard or somewhere equally warm and they should be dry by Christmas. A night in a low, low oven can speed up the process if necessary.

Cloves can be expensive, especially if you buy them in those small glass spice jars. Get them instead in plastic bags from Indian or Asian supermarkets, where they are sold in bulk. The cloves act as an anti-microbial so the oranges don’t rot as they dry out. Press into your oranges as many cloves as fit, or just enough to create a pattern. In that case, you won’t be drying out the oranges but making them only for the days of Christmas since they will rot. My clove-packed pomanders have lasted years, though their scent is now merely haunting. They just look nice, no? After Christmas, I store the fresh ones between my sweaters. Moths can’t stand them.

For each orange, you’ll need a toothpick - or the end of a biro - to press into the peel to create a small hole. Push a clove in and repeat. If you want, before you begin, tie a ribbon with a hanging loop around the orange as you would for a Christmas present parcel and press the cloves around each ribboned quarter. Or a finer ribbon after you’ve studded the oranges.