Vegemite is 100 years old. The first yeast paste, Marmite, was introduced in the UK in 1902, named after the French cooking pot; New Zealand Marmite, currently a quite different product, emerged in 1919. The mite suffix had nothing to do with might, but the association was irresistible, and Vegemite was created in Australia in 1923, to take up an apparently indelible, salty place in its nation’s dreams.

The economic logic of producing and selling yeast pastes was compelling. The German chemist Justus von Liebig had discovered that waste yeast from brewing could be turned into an edible paste. If people could be made to like it – strange to say, some people still don’t – a by-product could be utilised and fortunes could be made. 

The discovery that yeast spreads contained large quantities of vitamin B and its consequential popularity both among the public and among British troops in the first world war encouraged its expansion. The Melbourne businessman Fred Walker had been producing a beef extract, Bonox, since 1918. With the disruption of food imports, Walker hired a chemist, Cyril Callister, to establish the process, and ran a competition to name the new product. His daughter Sheilah chose the winning name, Vegemite.

It was slow to establish itself, and for some early years, the name was changed to Parwill, apparently only to enable the advertising slogan ‘Marmite… but Parwill’. The decisive factor, however, came because of another part of Walker’s business. In 1925 he had entered into partnership with an innovative food businessmen, James L. Kraft. In the 1930s, free jars of Vegemite were given away to Australian shoppers buying Kraft’s highly popular processed cheese. Shortly afterwards, the line that Vegemite was given to soldiers serving in the second world war aided the product’s rise to unassailable household icon in Australia. 

Its continuing popularity in Australia is witnessed by the fact that, uniquely among markets, there are a number of competing yeast pastes – Promite, Ozemite, AussieMite and Mightymite. The recipe has gone virtually unchanged since 1923, though its rivals, in search of a milder taste, can contain anything from white vinegar to caramel and glucose syrup. It is now, fittingly, owned by an Austr-alian company after decades of being owned by Kraft. Other national yeast pastes, such as the austere Swiss Cenovis, seem to appeal only to late-middle-aged purchasers. Vegemite has maintained its wide appeal.

There is really only one thing to do with it, which is to spread it on hot buttered toast. Advocates of a dollop in gravy are one thing; proponents of Vegemite sauce for spaghetti and a horrifying-looking recipe for Vegemite Icy Poles, a sort of choc ice, are quite another. Its chief appeal, surely, is its association with love, a cosy world where Mummy spreads it thinly, and slices it into soldiers. Its substance, fudgy in texture where Marmite is glossy, and its noble history of reuse and contribution to military prowess are only two parts of the explanation. The last must be accounted for by analysts of a nation’s psyche.