It is quite salty, but you only use a very thin smear on toast, it’s very vitamin B rich yeast extract, it’s so dark brown that it’s nearly black. It’s very thick (it will hold its shape) - a bit like cool butter, but it’s not greasy and it spreads easily.
It’s is best served as follows: toast a thick slice of white bread; smear liberally with butter; put the thinest of thin scrapings of vegemite on top. If you must, feel free to add a slice of vintage tasty cheese (but it isn’t necessary).
I’ve grown up on the stuff. Mum used to smear it on my rusks when I was teething as a baby. In prep, I used to take vegemite and honey sandwiches to school for lunch. Now I am more discerning, and I got the vegemite toast option or vegemite and cheese sandwich.
And TLD’s right - vegemite sangas went down very well with a glass of milk after school…
I’m a marmite fan myself. But I do like a bit of variety, and I currently have a jar of each downstairs. Don’t be sucked into believing that a tiny smear is the only way to eat it. Spread thick on toast is also great. I go through a 250 gram jar in about a month. Sometimes it is probably my only source of vitamins.
As to the taste?
Marmite is a lot sharper, and tastes a whole lot more salty. Vegemite has a more rounded malty sort of a flavour. Both are yeast extracts. You can get an approximation of it if you can acquire some flaked deactivated brewer’s yeast. Maybe in a health food shop or some obscure corner of your supermarket. But the 'mites have something extra and undefinable that the yeast doesn’t have. A sharp edge in the same way that anchovies have a sharp edge over sardines. Maybe it is an acquired taste, but it’s good for you.
I have had the same breakfast every day for as long as I can remember - Vegemite, spread generously on hot buttered toast. I take my own supplies with me when I travel to other “heathen” nations overseas.
Qadgop, if you need any get in contact and I’ll send a jar or two. I used to send it to friends in the USA until they told me they put it on their kids tongues when they swore! And this from a race who eat pumpkin pie with cream!!! Ewwww.
If memory serves correctly, you can buy Vegemite in Bawlmer. Let Elfbabe know before she comes home this summer.
Of course, with a metric ton of it sitting around, I guess it’s not really an issue, is it?
I agree. I like a not-so-thin smear, myself. And no butter/marge when I eat it on English muffins (crumpets).
I looked at the clock and realised that it was too late to make a bowl of oatmeal (with a spoonful of lingonberries, yum!), and then I found this thread. So I’ve just finished a Vegemite sandwich with marg. And I’ve made two more for lunch!
Qadgop the Mercotan: I’ve had Vegemite broth, and I’ve used Vegemite as a condiment on breakfast burritos and Thai BBQ chicken. Of course, I use it as a spread. But I’d really like to get some of your recipes.
How about starting a Vegemite Recipes thread in Café Society?
You know those gooey, beefy brown congealed bits swimming in fat at the bottom of the roasting pan after making a serious pot roast? The kind that make the excellent gravy? It’s sort of like that, only saltier, and without the fat.
Sheesh, Qadgop, I make probably a cup or so of that stuff every month; you should have told me you were running low. I was up in that (cough) bustling metropolis just to your north this past weekend.
Well, mind you, it’s in the pre-Vegemite state - brewer’s yeast proper, that is - but I suspect someone could whip up some homemade (homebrewed?) version of the real thing with it.
