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One of life’s wonderful pleasures, or the most foul, vile foodstuff on the planet. These are two sides of Vegemite.
Australians love it - they are brought up on it from the time they can eat solid food (or even before), and at home just take it for granted. When travelling overseas they have been known to take huge stocks of Vegemite with them, so they will not be without their favourite food.
You can spread it on bread or toast, put it on top of crackers and cheese. It is the ultimate home-made fast snack, and probably the commonest ingredient in Australian home made lunches. The secret of getting vegemite to taste good is to use it SPARINGLY!. Too much vegemite will overpower your taste buds and will not be very nice. Just a thin smear is ideal.
It is made from yeast extract (a by-product of beer brewing I believe). In appearance it is jet black in the jar, with a smooth consistency like margarine, and it has a strong yeasty smell. It is also one of the world's richest known sources of vitamin B.
Some friends we made in L.A. tried a little vegemite one day during our visit. Their reaction was very polite (they tried not to screw up their faces too much as they were eating it). The verdict - "you mean you guys really eat this stuff? VOLUNTARILY? Someone else stated it had the colour and consistency of axle grease!
Although we took a good supply with us, we soon discovered why Americans don’t take to Vegemite. It has to do with American bread, which is much sweeter than Australian bread. Whereas vegemite tastes great on Australian bread, the sweetness of American bread combined with the strong yeasty taste of vegemite produces a strange taste which even we did not like.
(We had to hunt for bread that wasn’t too sweet. Almost all brands contain large amounts of sugar, honey, molasses, or other sweeteners. Everywhere we went we spent large amounts of time in supermarkets just reading the bread labels trying to find a loaf that didn’t list some kind of sugar in the ingredients)
If you look hard you may be able to find it in America, but only at specialty stores like Olivia Newton-John’s Koala Blue chain.
Vegemite Links:
See Yahoo: Entertainment: Food and Eating: Types of Foods: Vegemite
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