British food experience

[lizwilliams]

major_clanger reports on the following article:

http://www.girlalive.com/food/028.html

So, let me get this right: you're not keen on Marmite, then?

A brief and possibly unrepresentative poll taken at breakfast at a Milford some years back revealed a divide (possibly more of a gaping fire-filled chasm) between those who love this particular spread, and those who do not. I recall one person who has access to this LJ remarking that it is, in fact, 'scrapings from the Devil's butt crack.'

I disagree. Although other yeast pastes are indeed disgusting, including the low-salt version. I just about got my head round Vegemite at one point, but that was under compulsion.

So, a poll:

[Poll #923068]

Comments

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

So glad that I got in first. Because it really, really is vile... I just can't see why my wife and son both like it so much...

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

I don't mind it (watch as I straddle your gaping fire-filled chasm) and cheerfully eat it, while not thinking it anywhere close to the ambrosial nectar of the gods. It's just another spread.

Vegemite is ambrosial, though.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Marmite is a Good Thing. Vegemite is a Very Good Thing. I've never really understood all you people and your strange distaste for it.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Maybe licking the Devil's arse is a good idea?

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I believe we have some customers who do....

[palecast.livejournal.com]

I do like a little Marmite from time to time. However the low-salt version (tried at Milford) was definitely the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted.

[elarasophia.livejournal.com]

My French aunt tried Marmite and was immediately hooked. We can always make her day by sending her a jar of it!

I don't think it's scrapings, but I refuse to kiss hubby when he has had Marmite. :)

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

She must be one of the few foreigners who actually likes it! I was beginning to think it was a gene...

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

I'm another foreigner who loves the stuff! (Well, many of my ancestors were English, so maybe it is genetic. I also love black pudding.) I like a scrape on bread or crackers, and I also use it as a Sekrit ingredient in some dishes. Last night, for instance, I made roast beef in my usual way: smear the entire outside with a nice glop of Marmite, then some rosemary-flavoured olive oil, then sprinkle liberally with kosher salt. Stick in rotisserie till done. Mmmm.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Ooh! That sounds wonderful! I might try that in the not-too-distant future.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I have my own heretical position which is that, much as I love Marmite by itself, I am fondest of it spread thick on toast with a thin smear of mayonnaise on top. By itself, of course, on crumpets.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

>with a thin smear of mayonnaise on top

How COULD you?? ;-)

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Make one slice of toast. Open Marmite jar and take healthy dollop; spread. Open Hellman's jar and take healthy dollop; spread...

Oh, I see, moral outrage, not question about technique. Umm, well, it's a joy in excess thing, I suppose - the extreme of saltiness and sourness and succulence and crispness all coming together in the same mouthful. Not better than sex, but certainly having some of the characteristics.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

chilperic is invited to take his marmite breath elswhere. His was an English, and therefore Marmite household. Mine was a Jewish household and we don't do marmite.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I think it's like garlic. You both need to eat it and then it cancels itself out. Unless it acts like two lumps of plutonium or something....

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Lurve Marmite, but Vegemite's revolting. How is this?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

No two yeast extracts that I have ever tasted are even remotely similar. However, I no longer buy Marmite because of the corporate and salt angles. We use hippy low-salt yeast extract in cooking, and I can now occasionally tolerate it on bread with plenty of olive oil spread.

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

Scrapings from devil's butt crack isn't too bad if you are hungry enough, but vegemite is definitely ambrosia.

[wishus.livejournal.com]

It is possible to both love and hate Marmite with the same tastebuds, I've noticed.

[badgermind.livejournal.com]

I was allergic to yeast (both baking and brewing) as a child. I remember convulsive sneezing fits on the bus home after going for my weekly allergy test. In those days they started with skin prick tests, drawing circles in biro round the red mark and lifting it off with sellotape. The results were then confirmed by putting a drop or two of the offending substance down my inverted nose. A delight for Tuesday evenings after school. So no normal bread or beer as a teenager, only Nimble bread, home made soda bread and experimenting with whisky and wine in my late teens and student years.

I remember arriving at university and informing my tutor that I was allergic to eggs, fish, yeast, dust, feathers and dogs. His reply was that the last three did not (he hoped) feature in the college cooking!

In my late twenties I was able to eat bread again, extending to beer and CAMRA membership in my forties. Unfortunately there are one or two foodstuffs, including Marmite, where my "Don't eat this" response has persisted.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I also lurve black pudding. I am, of course, talking about proper Marmite from a glass jar and not the sissy squeezy stuff.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Naturally. The squeezy stuff is an abomination.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Is there an American food product that most Brits regard with the same horror we have for Marmite & black puddings?

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I can't think of one offhand. Any offers?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Cheez Whiz.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I was once served grits with cheese by a defrocked priest (don't ask), which would have been reasonable except that someone later (why not before we'd eaten??) revealed that the priest had spat in it, for luck. *Tell me* this is NOT the way of your people!

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's *why* he was defrocked? I have never heard of such a thing. Ewww.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

OK, gotta agree with you there. I will not touch the stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Cheez Whiz is NOT food. It is extruded cheese-flavored Product.

"Extruded" and "Food" should be mutually exclusive terms, IMHO.

Also "Food" and "product."

Esther

Marmite equivalent

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

peanut butter?

My husband got some really odd looks about his peanut butter and 'jelly' when he was attending school in Scotland/Oxford on his father's sabbaticals. Mom recalled much the same thing happening, some decades earlier, when she went to London as a teenager.

[aeriedraconia.livejournal.com]

I went in all unsuspecting as I took a small taste of Marmite(on bread). Vile is a great description.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Once or twice a year I get a craving for it. But that satisfied I then don't want any for another year.

I tried American "biscuits and gravy" and was pretty repulsed.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Biscuits & gravy can vary from wonderful spicy comfort food to wallpaper paste depending on who's making the gravy and what sort of sausage they're using. Most places do not use enough sausage. I'll only eat it at home where I know it's been made properly. In fact, I may very well make that tonight.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Time to ask: how do you make biscuits and gravy? I think your 'biscuit' is more like our scone.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Yep, make basic round scones with no sugar. Meanwhile, take about a pound of loose pork breakfast sausage and brown it. I like the kind with a good bit of sage and red pepper in it. Drain off the fat and make a roux with it and a few spoonfuls of flour (yes this is bad for you but essential to the flavor). Add butter if there isn't enough fat. Cook the roux lightly and add about 4 cups of milk. Bring to a simmer and cook until thickened, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add the sausage meat and mix well. Split a couple of biscuits and place in a large shallow bowl, top generously with sausage gravy. Serves about 4-5 people.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

This sounds great - thank you for posting.

We just had a fantastic toad-in-the-hole, home made by T.