What have they done to the Marmite?

Yes, I've come up from down under but, this is wrong.

A wee while ago, after the Christchurch earthquakes, there was a shortage of Marmite in New Zealand.  The yeasty deliciousness was suddenly scarcer than a scarce thing.  There was panic buying.  Rightly so.  Panic buying was the only way.  I know the product revels in its love it or hate it state of being; for me, there are few, very few, spreads that satisfy in the way that Marmite does. Or did.

What have they done to Marmite?

I have just moved back to the UK.  I have not lived here since 2006.  Much is the same, much has changed.  It’s like coming out of a coma.  Half remembered memories flash vivid to be replaced with garish and or cold grey realities that leave me feeling a bit lost.  The chocolate is not chocolatey enough, it is too sweet.  Have I Got News For You is still on the TV.  We still have one and two pence pieces.  On the other hand, BBC Radio comedy is brilliant (thankfully, I knew this before I set foot on the plane – BBC iPlayer is a genius thing…yes, yes, that meant I did know HIGNFY was still on too…excuse a little poetic licence).  Fresh fruit and veg don’t cost the earth.  Pork pies. But, I am compelled to ask again:

What have they done to Marmite?

I bought my first jar of the spread, we’ll go with that word for now, and, at breakfast time this Sunday, I joyfully came to use the …spread… on my toast.  It’s been a staple and I was looking forward to it being a bit of a bridge between NZ and UK.  Odd.  It was then I noticed the lid to the jar was not a screw top but a flip top.  That’s wrong.  Marmite with a flip top lid?  No.  Being both male and a man, I immediately unscrewed the lid and opened the jar.  The contents splatted out.  Marmite splatted.  “Splatted” is not a verb Marmite should be associated with.  I should be able to hold a jar of Marmite upside down and have to wait for the next ice age for some to, potentially, ooze out.  I actually made an “eurrgh!” noise and had to wash the content – lick the content – off my hand.  There was something wrong with the flavour.  We’ll come back to that.  Marmite is a spread, it is a paste – it is not fluid.  Something was very wrong.

This should not be physically possible.

Where's the deep brown, black brown, sloe brown colour gone?

 Cleaning myself off, I noticed the colour of the jar’s contents.  Brown, yes, but not the dark, black brown, deep black, sloe brown of Marmite.  It was brown in the way Nutella is brown, brown in the way HP Sauce is brown.  Not Marmite brown.  Then the question of consistency reasserted itself.  This “Marmite” not only looked like HP sauce, it behaved like it.

WHAT have they done to Marmite?

I buttered my toast and, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, flipped open the “jar” of “Marmite” and squeezed some out onto the bread.  It ran like a sauce.  I spread the “spread” – this is causing me to wince – and then I bit into the toast and delighted in the yeasty, dark, bitter goodness as it…no.  I tasted a roast beef come oxtail crisp flavouring carousing in my mouth.  The package insists it is 100% Vegetarian.  It doesn’t taste like it.  I wanted the schismatic bitter brackish taste.  I was looking forward to the controversy in my mouth; instead I got a Bovril experience.  I wasn’t ready for that.

I notice now that the label is printed so it is the right way up when the “jar” is on its lid.  This has caused me to heave a sigh.

After the Christchurch earthquakes, Marmite could not be locally produced.  This may be the explanation I am looking for.  In New Zealand, Marmite competes with Vegemite.  Both have that delicious bitter biting yeast taste I associate with Marmite. Perhaps mother memory is deceiving me and Marmite has always tasted like this in the UK?  If so, all this has proved is that I truly am an alien and the shift back is going to be far more difficult than I had ever expected.