For those out of the loop, Vegemite is a yeast spread made from a byproduct of the beer brewing process.
So how did some prisoners use it to illegally make prison hooch?
And what is it doing in a popsicle?
Keep watching to find out!
Before Vegemite, Australian shoppers were mad about Marmite, which was developed around
the turn of the 20th century by a German scientist who figured out a way to make a usable food
out of brewer's yeast, a byproduct of the beer-making process.
It became a beloved foodstuff in the U.K., even earning a Royal Warrant from the British
royal family.
And it's still popular with the British establishment today.
"I want a world in which we send you Marmite, you send us Vegemite!"
Australians loved Marmite too, but unfortunately for them, it became difficult to import from
Britain during World War I. After the war, inspired by the recent Marmite shortages,
Aussie businessman Fred Walker charged a chemist
named Cyril Callister with developing a suitable replacement.
It took him a few months, but eventually, he came up with a satisfactory formula, and
Vegemite was released in 1923.
Although it was invented as a Marmite replacement, Vegemite tastes rather different from its inspiration.
Vegemite has a more intense, salty, bitter, and savory flavor than Marmite, and it's also
thicker than its older cousin.
Perhaps that's why it took a while for Vegemite to catch on in Australia.
After World War I, Marmite was back on store shelves Down Under, and it was the main player
in the country's yeast spread market.
Walker was so desperate to turn around Vegemite's bad fortunes that the company renamed it to
Parwill, coming up with the catchy slogan, "If Marmite ... then Parwill."
The name change didn't do anything to boost Vegemite's sales figures, and the spread seemed
doomed… until an unlikely savior appeared.
In 1925, Walker began manufacturing processed cheese in Australia on behalf of Kraft.
He did so well that by 1935, he decided to try and use his cheese sales to prop up Vegemite.
Every time a customer bought any Kraft Walker product, they could redeem a coupon for a
free jar of Vegemite.
It worked, and Vegemite's popularity skyrocketed because of the promotion.
Vegemite became even more ingrained in Australian culture during World War II, when the Australian
government shipped it as rations both to its fighting men and its civilians.
Just like another famous wartime ration, Spam, Vegemite was shelf-stable and easy to ship,
and people kept eating it after the war ended.
According to the Vegemite website, the company sells more than 22 million jars annually,
and though it is now available around the globe, most of those sales are in Australia.
Given that the population of Australia is just over 26 million people, that's nearly
a jar for every citizen - and it seems like nearly every citizen has a song to sing about Vegemite.
One of the ways the spread became such a fixture in its early years was by sponsoring a limerick competition.
The company's official history notes that the 1937 contest, which gave out Pontiac cars
to the winners, boosted Vegemite sales across the country.
In addition to poems, the brand is also associated with a famous song from the 1950s, "Happy
Little Vegemites," which has been preserved by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
And, of course, the snack spread gained worldwide attention through the Men at Work song "Down
Under," which confused international listeners in 1981 with its famous reference to a Vegemite sandwich.
Vegemite's recipe is top secret, so any attempt to figure out its actual ingredients involves
a certain amount of conjecture.
We can be sure that its main ingredient is brewer's yeast.
The Daily Meal alleges that both Vegemite and Marmite start as brewer's yeast that is
heated with salt to form a thick paste.
This paste is very high in umami flavor, and it's what makes Vegemite so savory.
We also know Vegemite contains some blend of vegetable flavorings, hence the name Vegemite.
What exact blend of vegetables goes into making Vegemite's distinctively bitter flavor is
anyone's guess, but The Spruce Eats claims that Cyril Callister's original recipe included
concentrates of onion and celery.
Since Vegemite primarily tastes like umami and salt, we'll probably never know for sure
what vegetables are in it unless some disgruntled employee goes rogue and spills the beans.
Brewer's yeast is a byproduct of beer-making, but it turns out you can still use it to make
alcohol even after it's been made into Vegemite.
The Age reported in 2007 that Vegemite was banned in prisons in the Australian state
of Victoria because inmates had figured out how to use it to make illicit hooch.
Prison officials believed that the incarcerated brewmasters had stolen fruit from the kitchen
and added melted Vegemite.
The yeast in the Vegemite fermented the fruit, turning it into alcohol.
A few years later, in 2013, an ABC article reported that people in areas of Australia's
Queensland state where alcohol was banned had been using Vegemite to ferment Ribena,
a kind of blackcurrant-flavored soft drink, turning it into an alcoholic beverage.
Appeals to health and nutrition were a big part of Vegemite's early marketing strategy.
According to What's Cooking America, in 1939, the British Medical Association actually gave
the spread its stamp of approval, citing its high levels of B vitamins.
According to WebMD, a one-teaspoon serving of Vegemite contains only 9 calories but boasts
1.3 grams of protein and 25-50% of your recommended daily value of four B vitamins.
Plus, even though the spread tastes very salty, one teaspoon only works out to 5% of your
daily limit of sodium.
If that's still too much salt, you can always eat nutritional yeast instead, which has all
the same nutrients minus the sodium.
Australia and New Zealand are right next to each other.
Because of their proximity, you would think New Zealand customers would follow the lead
of their Australian neighbors and eat Vegemite, but apparently, that's not the case.
Kiwis love their yeast spread, but they're on team Marmite.
This preference became very obvious during a crisis that the New Zealand media jokingly
called "Marmageddon."
In 2012, New Zealand's only Marmite plant had to stop production briefly to repair earthquake damage.
This caused a run on the spread.
Although New Zealand's then-prime minister, John Key, told the Herald that he liked Vegemite
just fine, it seems as though his fellow citizens didn't agree, as the Marmite shortage led
the price of a single jar to spike over $60 on an auction site.
"Hello, my picture represents Marmageddon, that time in New Zealand history when Marmite
was in short supply."
Vegemite is salty, savory, and bitter, so it's not the first ingredient you would think
of as a good candidate for a chocolate bar filling.
However, sometimes savory flavors work great in candy form; salty caramel is basically
a cliché at this point, and super-dark chocolate is inherently bitter all by itself.
So it might work, right?
Well, maybe not.
Cadbury actually tried it, and according to The Guardian, the mix of milk chocolate and
Vegemite tasted pretty dismal.
The main reviewer found that the Vegemite flavor, while present, lacked the zip of the
real thing.
Even worse, the aftertaste lingered long after its welcome had worn out.
Yuck!
Chocolate isn't the only odd pairing for vegemite.
Australian supermarket chain Coles started selling Vegemite and cheese-flavored lamb
sausages that they marketed for Australia Day.
More suspect, however, is another Vegemite food mentioned in the article: a Vegemite
popsicle, which in Australia they call an icy pole.
It almost sounds like a bad joke, especially considering Vegemite actually did commercials
making fun of these sorts of weird products!
With its intense and unique flavor, Vegemite is an undeniably divisive food, especially
since many people who are unfamiliar with the product don't eat it the correct way when
they try it for the first time.
They slather the highly-concentrated spread on too thickly, and end up eating way too
much at one time, which naturally makes it seem worse than it is.
That's what happened when Jimmy Fallon first sampled it on his show.
But proud Aussie Hugh Jackman couldn't let Fallon's Vegemite slander stand, so he took
it upon himself to demonstrate proper Vegemite technique to the host when he appeared on
"The Tonight Show."
"See this?
Maximum.
Maximum Vegemite.
No more than that."
Eating it the right way totally changes Fallon's opinion of Vegemite, so it's a good thing
Jackman didn't serve it to him on an icy pole.
Here's a strange fact: though Vegemite is the quintessential Australian treat, for most
of its existence it was actually owned by an American company.
That's because the secret recipe was acquired by Kraft after Fred Walker died in 1935.
And Kraft continued to own Vegemite for decades, which is how Cadbury, another Kraft subsidiary,
made those horrible chocolate bars in 2015.
However, after nearly a century of Vegemite's profits going to support U.S. corporations,
ownership of the brand finally came back home to Australia in 2017.
The ABC reported that Australian dairy company Bega bought the rights to produce most of
Kraft's food brands for the Australian and New Zealand markets - including Vegemite.
While Vegemite is most commonly used as a spread for toast or crackers, it's also a
versatile ingredient that can add an umami kick to various recipes.
Tasting Table notes that food manufacturers use yeast extract to add umami flavor to food
much in the same way that MSG is used, and Vegemite is a type of yeast extract.
If you're imaginative, we bet you can find many dishes that would benefit from the savoriness
of a little dab of Vegemite.
If you need some inspiration on that front, the Vegemite YouTube channel has many recipes
on it - and most of them don't seem as nasty as the icy poles.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
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