Marmite is a thick, dark brown, extraordinarily salty paste made from spent brewer’s yeast, and Britain has been arguing about it since 1902. Its own marketing gave up trying to persuade anyone decades ago and adopted the slogan “Love it or hate it”, which remains one of the most honest advertising campaigns ever run.
What it actually is
A by-product of beer. Yeast left over from brewing is concentrated into a sticky extract, seasoned with salt, and jarred. It was invented in Burton upon Trent, a brewing town, because the breweries had large quantities of used yeast and no use for it.
The taste is overwhelmingly umami — deeply savoury, meaty despite being entirely vegetarian, and very, very salty. There is no gentle version of it.
How to eat it — properly
This matters more than anything else, and it is where visitors go wrong. Marmite is a condiment, not a spread like peanut butter. The method is:
- Toast a slice of white bread.
- Butter it generously while hot.
- Scrape a very thin layer of Marmite over the butter — you should be able to see the toast through it.
Nearly every “I tried Marmite and it was horrifying” video involves someone spreading it like Nutella. That is the equivalent of eating a spoonful of soy sauce and concluding that soy sauce is inedible.
Other uses
Beyond toast, it is genuinely useful in cooking: a teaspoon added to stews, gravy, bolognese or mushroom dishes deepens the savoury flavour without tasting of Marmite. Marmite crumpets are a minor obsession, and Marmite-and-cheese sandwiches are a school lunchbox staple for those raised on it.
The versions
Marmite has produced limited editions with chilli, truffle, champagne and peanut butter. It also appears in crisps, rice cakes and, unavoidably, chocolate. Twiglets — knobbly wheat snacks coated in a Marmite-like yeast extract — are a Christmas fixture in British homes.
Marmite as an idiom
The advertising campaign did something unusual: it entered the language. To say something “is a bit Marmite” is now standard British English for anything that people either love or loathe with no middle ground. It is used about television presenters, buildings, football managers and prime ministers, and everyone understands it instantly.