Ahoy all,

It just dawned on me to write about one of the most obvious Australian national food icons - Vegemite! This famous black spread, similar in consistency to peanut butter, is made out of brewer’s yeast extract left over from beer production. Vegetable additives and spices are added to Vegemite to enhance the rich flavour - a little salty, malt-ish and bitter. The flavour could be described as tasting like a beef bouillon cube. Aussie’s like to spread Vegemite on toast or added into thier cheesy-mite scroll (a cheese spiral bun that looks like a cinnamon bun - except savory, not sweet).

Vegemite was invented after the English Marmite, and this annoyed the Australians to no end. So in 1922, the Australian Fred Walker (from Fred Walker & Co.) hired a food technologist named Cyril P. Callister to beat out the competition. Cyril’s version of Vegemite was a hit. Even 60 years later, Cyrils popular Vegemite was mentioned in the 80’s song Down Under by Men at Work: “I said, do you speak-a my language? He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich.”

Vegemite is the top selling black goo in Australia - having sold the billionth jar in October of 2008.

So here goes nothin’… a taste test of the famous Vegemite on toast…

YIKES! I think I better stick to peanut butter!

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