Vegemite is a rite of passage

here in Downunder. It is an essential part of life from early childhood. For anyone reading this who is not familiar with Vegemite then I suppose it is necessary to explain? You have not heard of it? Really?

It is made from brewer's yeast, a by-product of beer making. Salt, various vegetable flavours and vitamins are added to produce a savory spread. It is a cousin to Marmite but Downunderites (naturally) consider Vegemite to be a superior product. 

You need very little of this dark brown spread on your bread, your toast or the after school weet-bix. It is economical and does not require refrigeration.

As a kitten I often went to school with a Vegemite sandwich. It was not because I was particularly fond of Vegemite sandwiches but because this was what my mother could afford to give me. Two slices of bread put together with the merest scraping of butter if we happened to have some and Vegemite. If my memory serves me correctly there were a good many other young ones with the same sort of lunch. We lived in an area where money was very short in many families.

We also had Vegemite on toast at breakfast time and Vegemite on those after school wheat biscuits - the thick breakfast sort that you were really supposed to have with milk and sugar. Those biscuits were relatively cheap too I suppose. We did not always get them but we did not waste a wheat flake when we were given them. The other treat was a boiled egg with "Vegemite toast soldiers". If we had not been well then Grandma would produce this when we were starting to feel better.

Vegemite has continued to appear in every place I have ever lived in. I went off to university on the other side of the world with a jar of the stuff tucked into my luggage. Mum thought I would need it. It was only a tiny jar but it was there. She had no doubt I would find some more somewhere in London. 

I did find it. Harrod's sold it of course. It was there in their Food Hall. I saw it when we went to get fancy biscuits for a special birthday afternoon tea for a fellow student. I remember the late M... holding it up and saying, "Look Cat!"  I looked. I did not buy it there. It was expensive. I went off to a shipping company where the receptionist sat behind a display piled high with Vegemite. It was much cheaper there.

I now have the smallest jar because I do not eat a lot of it any more. It is not because I no longer like it but because I do not eat as much bread or toast. My shopping trolley is not filled with multiple loaves of bread ready to be turned into multiple slices of toast and Vegemite for teenage boys and their after school snack. Their mothers and other carers buy the largest jars available. It is still a relatively cheap snack unless you slather the butter on. 

And all this reminiscing has come about because the Canadian government has suddenly realised that Vegemite contains something not allowed in foodstuffs in Canada. They have banned imports of it and the sale of it. This is so even while they allow Marmite into the country. I have Canadian friends who are frantically trying to find ways around this. They became Vegemite addicts at university in London. I have little doubt they will succeed somehow. 

If they do not succeed then there is always Marmite I suppose...but somehow it is just not the same.