I don’t normally use this blog to comment on Australian happenings (save for gratuitous John Butler adoration) but when you discover that an Australian icon has been tampered with, you have to take a stand!
According to media reports, Kraft Australia, has decided to create a “versatile Vegemite” one that you can dip and spread in a way that previous Vegemite consistency just did not allow for. To achieve this feat of engineering the manufacturers have mixed Vegemite with cream cheese. Apparently “It’s Vegemite, But Different.”
Now I am a die-hard Vegemite supporter, and have been known to indulge in some Vegemite-nostalgia with Australians we’ve met along the way, but Vegemite and cream cheese??? I think that’s pushing the boundaries of culinary decency.
Perhaps Kraft has decided to round out the nutritional properties of this wonder food. While Vegemite-detractors (ie. Nyani) may dispute Vegemite’s health advantages, way back in the 1940s, Vegemite earned British Medical Association endorsement for its high Vitamin B content. Vegemite was even strictly rationed during World War II so that supplies could be sent to the troops abroad.
Or maybe Kraft simply felt there were some dishes that Vegemite just wasn’t finding its way into. I have previously limited my Vegemite intake to toast, and maybe the occasional spread-on-cracker-squeeze-through-holes adventure (which makes me a "Wormer" according to the Vegemite profiler page, with occasional "Scrambler" and "Redback" leanings), but, according to the Kraft site, Vegemite has far wider application – Vegemite Asian Prawn Skewers anyone?
Maybe I’m getting old, but vegemite and cream cheese? Sounds downright un-Australian to me.
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