I once made myself a Marmite Martini to see what it would be like. It was pretty bad, but not so bad that I wouldn’t give it another go sometime.
I hadn’t thought to put a pinch on the grounds instead of in the cup after brewing. I’ll have to try it that way.
Y’know what I have to have again though? Morning coffee with a big dill pickle. A coworker turned me on to this years ago, and it sounds gross but it’s amazing. A big sour deli dill, or even better one of those giant dill pickle pouches from a vending machine. I don’t know if it’s the salt, or vinegar, or both, but it’s amazing with coffee. And as a morning snack, a huge dill is like 2 calories. Yeah, I have to do that again.
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De gustibus non est disputandum of course but I think where most people go wrong with Marmite is quantity. If you’re used to peanut butter or Nutella or the like it’s really easy to use too much.
As @iknownuurthing so wisely said:
don’t overdo it
Buttered toast is ideal because you can make it hard enough that you can scrape the slightest skid-mark on it with a knife. It’s astonishingly potent. A very little goes a long way.
Of course, with time and exposure, required dosage may wildly increase.
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If you dislike it on its own then Marmite pairs well with peanut butter or marmalade or tinned tomatoes on toast.
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the portal to darkness will open and bad things start to happen.
Earl Grey, steeped for 3:30, with just a dash of milk, and the forces of darkness can suck it.
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This phrase isn’t helping Marmite’s case!
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Would this be a good time to mention my theory? Someday I really should do some research to see if there’s any merit to it.
Anyway….
Although the U.S. was bombed at Pearl Harbor, and there were a few other moments, basically we were never on the defensive the way the U.K. was during WWII. So while we had rationing during the war, we almost immediately roared back to life afterward. If anything, we had MORE of everything. Meanwhile, it took a long time for Britain to build back up, which meant rationing continued for quite some time.
If you toast bread to a uniform dark brown and let it cool afterward so it gets hard before you spread the butter, you can use a lot less butter to achieve the taste of buttered toast.
And of course once you’ve done that, an even thinner layer of salty vitamin B12 on top is incredibly nutritious and tasty.
Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.
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Clearly the UK’s WWII experience was nothing like on the scale of most of continental Europe but it still had a long shadow. The final WWII war debt repayment to the US & Canada was in 2006.
I do think that a fair bit of our reputation for bland and uninspired cooking is related to the generation (my parents for example) who grew up under rationing which continued until 1954. My grandmother was positively terrifying on the subject of wasted food.
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Perhaps not but it’s a strong mnemonic!
Hm. So I just had a couple of slices of sweet rye toasted, buttered, with a layer of Marmite so thin and sparse that it covered maybe 33% of the face of the toast, and covered that with a generous layer of raspberry-rhubarb jam. It was pretty good. I think it might have even been better than same toast without Marmite, because there was that subtle hint of Marmite flavor and salt that balanced out the sweetness of the jam and bread. It was actually really nice.
So, I guess that I like Marmite in sufficiently small quantities with enough sweetness to balance it out. Thank you for all of the tips @iknownuurthing, @FloridaManJefe, and @murray! I’m still going to try it with honey, of course, once I get over to the grocery store.
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Definitely. Food in Britain, like everywhere really, has been historically very cosmopolitan. Britain also, and to bring it back to the topic at hand, has had the influences of an enormous empire and a working class culture informed by soldiers as well as an elite cuisine. In Shakespeare’s time they drank coffee, which came from Africa via the Muslim caliphate in Europe. It was the expanding empire in India which brought in new fangled, hipster, tea conquering the old coffee houses, in the 19th century.
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Oh?
I remember being served hot Bovril, but never heard the term beef tea until I read a Sarah Waters novel set around WWII time.
Retch.
I have never really experienced marmite but I blame Bovril for that. Not happening.
Marmite is very different to Bovril No beef, to start with. And not really best drunk (i.e. do not drink!) Spread thinly on hot, generously buttered toast.
@RickMycroft Bovril (“beef tea”) has about as much to do with tea as other non-tea ‘teas’ (mint, chamomile, etc. ad nauseam - sometimes literally.)
I know what marmite is, it is the association with the dreaded Bovril which precluded me sampling it. It wasn’t a thing when I was growing up and it turns out I’m coeliac so that delight will never tickle my tastebuds.
Hmm - seeing as it is mostly yeast extract containing barley, oats, wheat and rye, that’s probably very wise. Still, there’s plenty of other ways to get one’s salt kick, I guess. 
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For the record, I used to drink a teaspoon of Marmite in a mug of warm water in the evening (rather than herbal tea) when I lived in London. And I liked it.
It’s worth trying. If you don’t like it, don’t have it a second time!
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Since people keep bringing up marmite… obligatory…
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