What is Marmite?

in a recent video i used marmite to season some gravy and i got quite a few comments saying what is marmite now of course you can just type those words into google you know but i thought it'd be interesting today just to talk about what is marmite what does it taste like and we'll just review marmite we're also going to review the low salt version [Music] and marmite exo which is a stronger version and of course no conversation about marmite would be complete without talking about vegemite and bovril [Music] so what is marmite marmite is a yeast extract product it's made from a waste product of the brewing industry the yeast sludge that collects at the bottom of brewing vessels is sold off and it's processed into marmite so in a nutshell this is a kind of waste disposal product but it's also really tasty it's often used as a substitute for some of those rich meaty flavors that you get from browned meat we're going to taste marmite in various forms today along with vegemite it's worth noting that in new zealand marmite is made by a different company and looks different it's in a jar that's more this shape but well i'll put a picture on the screen so you've got marmite new zealand which is a different brand but the same kind of idea and then there are other products like promite and all of the supermarket own brand variations of course and probably some others i haven't mentioned or can't think of anyway what i'm going to do is go and get some toast and butter and we're going to taste marmite okay now before we get into the tasting of each of the individual varieties of yeast extract let's just talk a little bit about the flavor of yeast extract the flavor of any yeast extract what does it actually taste like that's a difficult one to answer precisely because it is quite a unique flavor but in general it tastes extremely savory it tastes like i could liken it to the savoriness of crispy bacon or crispy chicken skin or crispy toasted cheese it's not the same as any of those things but it's the same kind of savoury depth if that makes any sense so if you're thinking of the aroma and flavor of yeast in the context of baker's yeast or sourdough starter it's not really like that at all it's much more along the lines of the char on the outside of a steak for example than it is about yeast in its fresh form and that's a lot to do with the processing it's also a lot to do with the amount of salt that's in here the salt is not just an ingredient it's part of the process for extracting all of that flavor out of the yeast cells the salt is used to burst those cells open during the cooking process and that's where all the flavor comes from it's really high in glutamate so very much like soy sauce or say anchovies it's that kind of intensity of flavor okay we're going to dive straight into testing because this toast is still slightly warm which is nice and we'll talk about ingredients and stuff afterwards now because marmite is a vegan thing i thought it might be interesting just to try this flora rich and creamy alternative to dairy butter it's a plant-based spread it's a block i've had this out of the fridge for a while so i think we'll give this a try on the toast now when you have marmite on toast i always think that you need a fair old bit of butter on there so i'm just going to taste this stuff first to see what this is like it does taste buttery so anyway let's crack on with the tests so first things first regular marmite this is the kind of mainstay version and as you can tell this jar has already been used i already had this in the cupboard the other jars i've bought for the purpose of this test and so marmite's this kind of sticky stringy tar-like substance and i would say you spread about that much of it on toast and this is where the butter comes in because that butter helps to mitigate the saltiness of it and so some people might like more than that some people might like just the very lightest scraping that's about the right amount for me so no major surprise is that that's the regular marmite you know what i think i will compare vegemite because while we're here this is the kind of direct competitor to this product let's compare vegemite with marmite it's a slightly more pasty substance rather than sticky and tarry it's more like a thick paste i don't know if you can see that there and i've taken too much so let's give that a try it spreads differently definitely it's more of a yeah more of a pasty spread darker in color than marmite let's give it a taste it's good in fact i would say it's a bit milder in flavor a bit less salty perhaps than marmite so i'm going to try a big watch of it here definitely a different flavor profile it's got a kind of darker toastier maltiness to it which is quite nice honestly i can't understand how people say that they love one of these things and hate the other i can understand why you would love or hate the whole collection of things but i can't understand why anybody would say that they like marmite but hate vegemite they are sufficiently similar that really i don't get how you can have that finely defined a preference anyway on with the show and yeah i'm getting crumbs on the butter it's my butter so deal with it so next we're going to try the marmite reduced salt version now this is actually my preference for keeping in the cupboard usually if i can get it not because i'm scared of salt but because if you have the reduced salt version it means there's more of everything else so there's more of the umami sort of flavor and you can spread it thicker without overwhelming your palate with the salt so i like to spread the the reduced salt version quite a bit thicker that's really good okay now the marmi xo matured with a stronger taste so it looks really similar to regular marmite hard to see a real major difference there so it's got this same toffee-like stringiness to it get a generous spread of that on there so we can give it a good taste i can't actually tell a lot of difference between these two products this one is more powerfully yeasty and umami flavor than the regular marmite because it's got less salt this one is more powerfully yeasty in umami supposedly because it's extra old but the overall effect is kind of the same that's interesting and then bothering now bothering is not normally used in the same way as marmite bother all people use it either to make gravy or they use it uh to make beef tea which is like a like a bouillon that you drink from a cup it's unusual i think to spread botherable on toast but i'm gonna do it oh shouldn't have been tilting that jar look at that it's gone everywhere so we can see that bovrel is very much more runny than marmite i'm going to spread it on toast to taste it but yeah this is not how it would normally be used darker than marmite and kind of resembling the vegemite in a way but different consistency very similar kind of flavor and we'll see why in a minute because the ingredients are quite similar but yeah there is that hint of meatiness in there because it is a animal product this one so which is my overall favorite out of this i would say one of one or the other of these two so the reduced salt or the exo and they are very similar on the palette which is really interesting perhaps i should have tried them with white bread because there could be something about this granary bread that's skewing the results but to be honest this is how i normally eat toast i my preference is greenery bread anyway so i ought to be testing it the way i like to eat it okay so which one of these or which one of all of them including the own brands and variations not present here is the best well i have trouble with this idea because they're all quite similar and actually i just don't find there to be a very good reason to be fiercely loyal to one variation of this idea i like marmite and i like vegemite it's like i like raspberry jam and i like strawberry jam why would i need to choose one and then never eat the other so i'm going to finish my breakfast now and then tidy up and then we'll come back and look at ingredients and talk about the product in general okay time now to talk about what is marmite and the ingredients so the ingredients for regular marmite are yeast extract which contains barley wheat oats and rye salt vegetable juice concentrate vitamins which is thiamine riboflavin niacin vitamin b12 and folic acid natural flavourings which contain celery and i think we'll probably find yeah the ingredients on the other two are the same of course the proportion of salt in this one will be lesser and then vegemite we've got ingredients yeast extract which is from yeast grown on barley and wheat salt malt extract from barley flavor enhancer which is potassium chloride color e150c spice extract contains celery niacin thiamin riboflavin folic acid very similar set of ingredients different set of grains so this is made from barley and wheat whereas marmite is made from barley wheat oats and rye so that probably accounts more than anything else for the different flavor profiles of these yeast extract pastes bothering of course contains beef so ingredients here are beef broth 50 yeast extract right okay barley wheat oats rye salt water color which is ammonium caramel corn starch beef powder one percent flavoring which contains celery and flavor enhancers lactic acid may contain milk egg soy and mustard so quite a different product actually although interestingly bother all went completely vegetarian at one point when the bsc crisis was in play bovrel was withdrawn from the market initially and then came back as a completely vegetarian recipe which i think was just marmite under a different branding they are both made by unilever i don't think that's necessarily always been the case they are both made by the same company and that's why obviously they share a lot of design language so two things left to talk about one is the question would i like marmite so for those of you watching this who've never tried marmite and you're wondering if you might like it well if you like salty savory things if you have ever scraped those sticky bits off the bottom of a roast chicken pan and eaten those if you like soy sauce i think you like marmite because the flavour although it's different and it's composed of different things is similarly umami and salty if you like those sort of salty umami combinations i think you should give it a try and if you're gonna try it my suggestion is crisp piece of toast liberal spreading of butter thin scraping of marmite just start with a little bit a mistake a lot of people make when they try this the first time is put a great big dollop of it on their toast or take a spoonful of it and try and eat a spoonful of it on its own i don't recommend tasting it straight from the jar have it on a piece of toast with lashings of butter and if you do like it then it's the time to ramp up the amount and figure out what your level is for spreading it one other tiny piece of atomic shrimp trivia is marmite is related to one of my earliest memories so i think i was about two and a half years old i was teething and i was eating marmite on toast for breakfast and i was trying to tell my parents that the marmite was making my teeth itch obviously i was only a couple of years old so i couldn't really articulate the the actual problem because of course where my molar teeth were growing in my gums were a little bit sensitive and the marmite was irritating them so i told my parents that marmite was making my teeth itch but that's one of my earliest memories and finally i suppose you're going to want to know which is best out of all of these which is best out of marmite or marmite exo or vegemite or any of the others that we could have bought but haven't got here today out of the marmite range the reduced salt is my favorite i think because not because i'm scared of salt but because the reduced salt here means you can spread more of it on there without salt being the overwhelming flavor and then you get more of that sort of meaty umami savoury flavor coming out then i haven't tried promite i've tried any of the the ones that are available abroad apart from vegemite which i have had before i've tried all of the different supermarket brands and i find them acceptable too a lot of people are really snobby about this and say it's got to be the brand but honestly i think they're all quite good in their own way and often they're a little bit different so sometimes if you get a supermarket brand you'll get a different subtle blend of flavors than you would get from the real branded marmite and i think that's good to have variety so i'm not afraid of buying the supermarket owned versions it just happens now i'm gonna have marmite in my cupboard for the next few months because this will take me a little while to get through so there we go i hope that has adequately answered the question what is marmite do feel free to ask me any other questions in the comments and i'll see if i can answer them thanks for watching and i hope to see you again [Music] soon [Music] you

Channel: Atomic Shrimp

Views: 380,794

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Id: MjrBTcnnK6c

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 13 2021