21st birthday party

My mother's Christmas Book is not merely about Christmas but includes accounts of other celebrations. The first of these in the volume is my 21st birthday party, held on 5 April 1992 for 42 people. My mother records the menu as follows:

Vichyssoise with croutons.
Salmon (cold, baked in foil - Delia Smith). 1 x 7 1/2 lb, 1 x 8 1/2 lbs (3/4 salmon left over).
1 6 lb topside beef roasted medium rare.
12 tiny poussins (roasted with olive oil & herbs).
Avocado salad 15 avocados - not enough! need 20)
Tomato salad (4 lb beef tomatoes - could have been 5!)
Green salad (1 x frisée, 1 iceberg, 2 bunches watercress - too much!)
Baked potatoes.
Orange & lemon charlotte x 4 in big metal bowl.
Green fruit salad -  Prue Leith - apple, grape, grapefruit & kiwi x 4. Made sorbet with leftovers!
27 bottles Champagne (special offer Sainsbury's extra dry!)
50 side plates, soup bowls, dinner plates, soup spoons hired from King's College Hospital.
Big bowls x 2, flat dishes x 4, knives, forks, spoons, glass pudding bowls borrowed off a friend.

I recall the embarrassment of having Happy Birthday sung to me, two speeches delivered in my honour, a poor speech in reply and my mother catching one of the waitresses hired for the day merrily chopping the avocados into the salad with their skins on. It was a good day.

Breakfast comestibles

Marmalade and marmite: both breakfast products with very different ingredients and flavours but both beginning with the same four letters.

Marmalade comes from the Portuguese marmelada (quince jam) and in turn from marmelo (quince) based on the Greek melimēlon from meli (honey) and mēlon (apple). How, I wonder, did the Portugese quinces turn (seemingly via melons and apples) into Seville oranges?

Marmite comes from the early 19th century. It is a French word from the Old French marmite (hypocritical - with reference to the hidden contents of the lidded pot) which in turn derives from marmotter (to mutter) and mite (cat).

Etymologically unrelated words. But now emphatically British products: British yeast in the case of Marmite. I have read somewhere that French chefs now use Marmite in cooking. Some members of our family pronounce it marmeet as though it were the French word.

I have never, on the other hand, heard of a French chef using marmalade in cooking. My mother once invented a recipe consisting of chicken thighs baked in marmalade.