Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
~ from “Down Under” by Men at Work

So what IS Vegemite, anyway? Well, you could visit their official website if you wanted. But that wouldn’t give you a real idea about the stuff.

Vegemite is actually a by-product of the beer brewing process. It’s made of yeast and salt and, errr… mostly yeast and salt. It’s very dark brown. It’s an acquired taste. It’s also sort of an unofficial national food. Yes, really.

As for what it tastes like, well, try to imagine what a thick, yeasty, salty goo that accumulated in the bottom of a beer vat might taste like if you put it on toast. I can’t work out how this got started.

“Hey, mate, what should we do with this brown stuff in the bottom of this vat?”

“Dunno, mate. How about we eat it on toast?”

“Aw, yeah, mate, good idea!”

No, I don’t like Vegemite. I’ve tried it on many occasions just to see if I could manage to acquire the taste for it, but I just can’t. Some Americans do come to like the stuff, but I don’t think I’ll ever be one of them.

One thing I’ve noticed about Australians is that if you say you don’t like Vegemite they always say, “Oh, you must have spread it too thickly!” and sometimes note that, “It’s not peanut butter!” And, to be fair, spreading it too thickly is a common error Americans make. It does have to be spread really thinly (personally, I think a depth of two to three molecules would be plenty). But the thing that amuses me is that there seems to be this underlying assumption that if you don’t like Vegemite, it’s something YOU did, other than it being the fault of the yeasty, salty brown goo, itself.

Well, I’ve had real, fair dinkum native Australians with years of Vegemite experience make toast for me, so I know it was prepared correctly. I still think it’s foul.

I will admit that it might be all right if it was spread very thinly (that’s a bit of a national chant, there) on a sandwich with, say, lettuce, tomato, and cheese (and by the way, it’s a “tuh-MAH-to” in Australia, not a “tuh-MAY-to”, but that’s another essay entirely). In other words, use just enough Vegemite to add a little saltiness to an otherwise non-salty sandwich. That might be okay. I haven’t tried it, but I’m willing to concede that it might be all right.

That’s pretty much the deal with Vegemite. I honestly don’t know why Australians love the stuff as much as they do, but I guess it’s just something you grow up with, sort of like Americans and Oscar Meyer products or something. I don’t entirely “get it”, but then, I’m an immigrant, bringing in my strange new ideas and pronouncing it “tuh-MAY-to” and all…

“We’re happy little Vegemites
As happy as can be.
We all enjoy our Vegemite
For breakfast, lunch and tea.
Our mother says we’re growing stronger every single week
Because we love our Vegemite.
We all adore our Vegemite.
IT PUTS A ROSE IN EVERY CHEEK!”
~ The Vegemite Song (first performed on a radio ad in 1950)

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