photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
jCross | all galleries >> Galleries >> My Words > June 14, 2009
previous | next
14-JUN-2009 John Cross Photography

June 14, 2009

IMG_2613P.jpg

This is Marmite, you either love it or hate it. I first ran into this stuff on the very first "full English breakfast" of our tour, All the condiments on the table were recognizable, except this stuff. I thought to myself, "This is interesting." So I opened the little individual serving and closely examined the contents. It contained a highly viscous black goo. Kinda like molasses, but very sticky. In the viscometry business we would call its behavior "long". That means it makes long stringy threads when you pull it apart. I figured it was meant for consumption since it was among the jams, jellies and, of course, Nutella. I took my spoon and carefully extracted a small tidbit and tasted it. YUCK! It tasted like what I would imagine poop to taste like. I drank some coffee (the British make good coffee, by the way) and some water and after a while I was returned to a normal state of consciousness.

OK, so now I was really curious so I asked our tour director, Julian, about it. I was pretty sure he was British because everything was "brilliant" or "lovely" in his mind. He was amused by my question. He told me that Marmite was actually a foodstuff and that Britain was about equally divided in the love it / hate it debate. His household was precisely evenly divided on the question. I enquired what the British do with it, and I was informed that you are supposed to spread it on ice cold toast. Ice cold toast is another story, they put freshly prepared toast in a little cooling rack which insures that it is ice cold by the time you get it and, therefore, there is no prayer that the almost frozen, rock hard butter will melt.

Back on topic - So, at Julian's suggestion, I resolved to try one more time and eat it in a most proper British manner. The next morning I took a piece of ice cold toast and spread a VERY THIN (this is important, now) layer of Marmite on it. I carefylly tasted a small bit of it and found that it was pretty good. I gobbled the whole thing. That accomplished, I decided to have another, this time with a generous portion of Marmite. This time it tasted awful. Hence I discovered rule number one for eating Marmite - if you put it on toast and there is enough so that it has a shiny appearance - DON'T EAT IT! As a corollary to rule number one, never spread it on warm toast because it will melt and soak in thus disguising the amount applied and thus seemingly passing the no shiny surface rule. Beware, that is a ruse. There is much too much Marmite there and it will revert to tasting like, well you know what.

I have also discovered rule number two. You can't really apply Marmite to toast that has been buttered hot. The butter forms a nice even soaked in texture which is far too slippery to apply Marmite to. It just stays on your knife.

Now I fully understand the British cold toast thing. They do it that way so that the unsuspecting Marmite lover can follow rule number one and avoid rule number two since tha butter will never melt.

Britain has been a wealth of cultural enlightenment. I really ought to write about pubs, and I may do that, if I ever get enough time away from the pubs to sit down and write about it. One thing I have discovered - a pint is a lot of ale. Six pints is even more. Rule Britannia!

Canon EOS 5D Mark II
1/30s f/4.0 at 105.0mm iso800 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
previous | next
comment | share