Little Foodies Australia - Vegemite V Marmite

There are all sorts of things to consider when choosing your yeast extract spread. Mainly taste and spreadability. But then there's the decision English or Australian?

Being English we tend to have marmite in the house and although we don't seem to follow the love it, hate it theme, we do like it. We don't have it often, possibly once a month, and when we do, we like it on toast or soft sliced bread (brown or white). I also like it with peanut butter. About as far away as you can get from a peanut butter jelly sandwich. (Sorry Culinary Cowgirl, see link on left as I can't get it to work here.)

Every so often I see a jar of vegemite and I buy it. I can't fathom why as having marmite in the house anyway it tends to sit there, get used once or twice and then goes out of date. It's not that we don't like it, we're just not massive yeast extract eaters, although for the first time I've just noticed on the side of the vegemite jar a recipe for honey and vegemite chicken fillets. Not entirely sure I'd like them but it may just be worth a try - for the experience you know.

For the purpose of this debate, test, debarcle, the following people were included. Me - Age 36, Little - Age 5, Small - Age 2 (Hubby was probably thanking his lucky stars that he was at work and would most undoubtably think it not very important to compare the difference between marmite and vegemite. He'd much prefer to argue about the health benefits of red wine or some other more exciting topic.)

Anyway... Marmite versus Vegemite. The jars are very different. Little preferred the vegemite jar "because its shape is more like a jam jar and I love jam." Small and I preferred the marmite jar, it's squat and cute looking.

Both jars have yellow lids. The logos are not that different to each other both having the colours - red and yellow. Little again preferred the vegemite jar, saying it looked more veg like but the marmite looked meaty (I think it's the picture of a pot on the front??)

On to texture and spreadability. The vegemite is much thicker but so long as you have enough butter on the bread or toast it seems to spread easily enough. Marmite is more runny and so long as it's not very cold spreads easily.

Now for taste. We couldn't decide which we liked best. They're both good. We came to the conclusion that marmite has a more meaty taste and the vegemite is slightly blander (my word). Little just said not so strong. So no debate conclusion really. We could live with either and we could also live without both.