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Right next to Australia’s largest container port lies a sickle-shaped neighborhood with an aroma so distinctive that passing taxi drivers sometimes roll down their windows to smell the rich, unmistakable aroma of beer.
That smell, officially recognized by the City of Melbourne last year for its “intangible cultural heritage” emanates from a nondescript brick factory on a corner lot in this industrial district, known as Port Melbourne. Every shipload of Vegemite, the variety highly prized in Australia and not so much outside of it, has begun its journey here for the last 80 years.
Gleaming glass jars, each filled with a swirl of semi-molten Vegemite, tremble as they clink along metal rollers on the assembly line before being grouped into squads of 12 and sent out into the world.
Australians crave Vegemite. It is found in more than 90 percent of the country’s homes, according to Bega Group, the company that makes it. Many, if not most, cafes have a tub in the kitchen and small, less than one-ounce jars are found in airport lounges across the country.
The brand celebrated its centennial this year, leading to ridiculous products (thin silver replicas of Vegemite jars that sold out in four hours) and a slew of questionable collaborations (Vegemite oatmeal, Vegemite roasted chicken, Taco Bell Vegemite). But it’s not at all clear what Vegemite, in all its tarry glory, actually is.
What does “concentrated yeast extract” mean on the label?
“I’m not sure that necessarily matters,” Matt Gray, Bega’s marketing director, said somewhat cautiously. “I don’t think anyone thinks about it that deeply.”
When pressed, Vegemite officials offer few clues. It is made with leftover yeast from local breweries and bakeries; requires a fermentation process of several weeks; It involves salt, and maybe onion and celery; and it is an excellent source of vitamins. (Most people eat it on toast in much smaller quantities than the typical peanut butter spread on bread.) The process almost certainly cannot be replicated in a home kitchen.
“It’s top secret,” factory director Robert Carman, who has worked at the plant for 51 years, said of the recipe.
Five days a week, in a room decorated with photographs of toast, Mr. Carman and a rotating team of tasters taste each batch. They look for firmness, “squeezability” and a flavor that hits just the right notes of salt and bitterness.
The rest of the world watches with something akin to ironic bewilderment. in a diary article in 2003, psychologists Paul Rozin and Michael Siegal found that Vegemite was “a candidate for being the most culturally specific food.” Ben Shewry, the celebrity chef behind Melbourne restaurant Attica, compares enjoying Vegemite to skateboarding.
“You have to have done it when you were a kid,” said Shewry, originally from New Zealand. “It’s too painful to learn as an adult.”
Vegemite evokes visceral reactions. More than a decade ago, President Barack Obama set aside diplomatic norms, excluding Julia Gillard, then Australian prime minister, proclaim: “It is awful.”
However, for many immigrants – whether from Colombia, Nepal or Samoa – they cannot become Australian without falling into national tradition.
In 2003, Guido Melo, 47, moved to Melbourne from Brazil with his ex-partner. He quickly began to assimilate, immersing himself in Australian sports and developing a taste for Vegemite, cheese and prosciutto sandwiches. “I wanted to be a part of this so badly,” he said of Australian life.
As a child in suburban Sydney, Hetty Lui McKinnon, an Australian Chinese chef, ate very few Western foods. The only exception, she said, were the “very strong” Vegemite sandwiches.
“It definitely made me feel more Australian because I was eating what everyone else was eating,” she said. “My mom didn’t really know how to make a proper Vegemite sandwich, so the ratio of Vegemite to butter was always a little off.”
Ms McKinnon, who now lives in Brooklyn, has only two Australian foods in her pantry: canned passion fruit pulp – and a jar of Vegemite. His book “To Asia with Love” suggests coating egg noodles with a luxurious, soporific emulsion of melted butter, miso paste, and Vegemite. (Ms. McKinnon contributes recipes to The New York Times.)
Australians didn’t always like Vegemite. Introduced in 1923 as a competitor to Marmite, a British yeast, it was not until 1937 that sales began to increase. Part of the appeal was advertisements promoting the product as healthy baby food. By World War II, it had become so popular that it accompanied Australian troops overseas and there were shortages at home.
“Sending it to war really solidified its place in the national diet,” said Jamie Callister, author of a book on the history of Vegemite and grandson of Cyril Callister, the food chemist who invented it.
But for most of its history, despite being manufactured and sold primarily in Australia, Vegemite was owned by Kraft, the American food company. It returned to Australian hands when Bega, a dairy company, bought it in 2017.
Kraft made an attempt to sell it to American consumers in the late 1960s. A campaign by advertising agency J. Walter Thompson avoided focusing on Vitality, which had worked at home, in favor of a campaign starring stars of the Australian sport.
“None of these celebrities would have been known or resonated in the United States,” said Emily Contois, a media studies professor at the University of Tulsa.
Interest in Vegemite in the United States increased organically in the early 1980s, with the popularity of the song “Men At Work.”Under(lyrics: “He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich”). For the first time, Americans rushed to try it, with vegetable-eating contests and parties. They generally didn’t like what they found.
“They don’t really understand it,” said Stephanie Alexander, a doyen of Australian food literature.
Although usually served on toast, Vegemite comes in many forms in restaurants and cafes across Melbourne. It is baked into salty, cheesy “rolls” or, in a restaurant, added to white chocolate ice cream, where its faint chemical flavor lingers on the taste buds for seemingly hours.
It even reaches fine dining. Shewry, the chef, makes his own trademarked copy, “Benmite”: a fresh, lightly powdered product of unspecified plant origin, which is spread on steamed buns, mixed with butter and squeezed into “buns.” with cheese” or served. in an avocado riff on toast.
For Shewry, Vegemite is as important a feature of Australian culinary heritage as many indigenous ingredients.
“We have this tendency to feel ‘cultural shame’ around really successful things, whether it’s Vegemite or a halyard-bone jacket,” he said, referring to waterproof coats made in Australia for almost a century. “But that thing over there is cool. “Actually, that’s a real part of our culture, and it’s important and valuable.”
According to Bega, more than 90 per cent of the approximately 7,500 tonnes (approximately 20 million tubs, tubes and jars) of Vegemite manufactured each year are purchased in Australia. But the product’s global profile far exceeds its international sales, thanks in part to the usual celebrity endorsements (or sometimes censures).
Hugh Jackman brought it to late-night television; Margot Robbie described shaving Vegemite on toast as the sound of your childhood; Tom Hanks a nation rebelled (and inadvertently raised awareness about coronavirus-induced anosmia, an abrupt loss of smell) by lathering it with abandon. Vegemite’s high-profile detractors include singers. Jason Deruloan American, and Niall Horanan Irishman who was once part of the boy band One Direction, who turned sour faces after being told about it live on television.
All this attention makes Callister, the Vegemite descendant and historian, optimistic.
“Looking ahead to the next 100 years,” he said, “I still think Vegemite could go global.”