Vegemite is 100 years old. The first yeast paste, Marmite, was introduced in the UK in 1902, named after the French cooking pot; New Zealand Marmite, currently a quite different product, emerged in 1919. The mite suffix had nothing to do with might, but the association was irresistible, and Vegemite was created in Australia in 1923, to take up an apparently indelible, salty place in its nation’s dreams.
The economic logic of producing and selling yeast pastes was compelling. The German chemist Justus von Liebig had discovered that waste yeast from brewing could be turned into an edible paste. If people could be made to like it – strange to say, some people still don’t – a by-product could be utilised and fortunes could be made.
The discovery that yeast spreads contained large quantities of vitamin B and its consequential popularity both among the public and among British troops in the first world war encouraged its expansion.
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