Finding Comfort In Vegemite On Toast (OR The Art of Making Toast)
The irony is not lost on me that I am seeking comfort today with vegemite on toast, accompanied by a cup of Earl Grey tea, with a dash of milk.
Here I sit, in my Mumbai apartment, in disbelief but not shock (shock would indicate that I am surprised by the Australian government’s actions, and nothing this government does can shock me anymore) about the recent decision by the Australian government to not only ban Australians from returning home from India, but to indeed criminalise returning, with a possible fine of up to $66,000 — yes, you read that right — or, even more incredibly, a potential jail term of up to five years. If that is not a failure of a government to protect its citizens, I don’t know what is.
So what is it, exactly, that makes vegemite on toast so comforting? Well, for some context, and how I found myself here, some background.
I recently gave up booze. Temporarily, I am pretty sure — the desire for a lovely glass of red is growing stronger everyday. It’s been four months now, and I must say I have not missed it much at all. I certainly don’t miss the mornings after I had one or two or six too many. I also don’t miss the night sweats, which seemed to start along with the other non-glorious perimenopausal indignities, such as hot flushes, phantom period cramps (phantom in the sense that the cramps happened, but the periods did not), old lady chin hairs, and… well, the list goes on. I had been thinking, around Christmas last year, about doing yet-another-detox, which I tend to do a few times each year. For this detox I thought I’d mix it up a bit and decided to stop drinking for three months, because quite frankly, I thought, why the hell not? I’d never intentionally done this before since I started my drinking career at the tender age of — -, except for when I was pregnant, and that was unintentional, I just didn’t feel like drinking then. I was toying with the idea of three months, and decided to voice it, out loud and to the kids, over dinner one night just after Christmas. Once I had done that the decision was remarkably easy. Speaking the words out loud was like a spell, I felt like I had invoked El Cadejo, the dog spirit from El Salvador, who protects drunks from harm or getting robbed, only this time El Cadejo was protecting me from myself. Not that I’m a drunk, mind you, but there were times during 2020 where I wondered if I perhaps was drinking a little too much.
So I gave up booze, and four months later it has stayed that way. Last week was probably the first time I really felt like a glass of wine, as in really, really felt like a glass. I didn’t have one because now that I’m here I know that to break this drought that a) the wine or booze will have to be delicious and exceptional and b) I’m not going to drink alone. My husband, and partner in crime, is away until early June, so it looks like I’ll have another month of sobriety, at least.
As context, to accompany this new found lifestyle, we also decided — as a family — to give up carbs across the board, and try the keto diet. We did this because, let’s face it, we’ve all discovered bad habits during the pandemic, and one of those has been eating far too much crap, including way too much sugar. We cut all grains, processed foods, vegetable oils except olive & coconut, and all sugar except fresh, in season fruit. This, coupled with the no booze plus a return to the gym after a year’s hiatus, was life changing in a really positive way. The night sweats disappeared, as did the hot flushes, the mood around the apartment improved. No more door slamming from the teens and generally a lot less tension.
Then this happened: the teens and I then went trekking in the Himalayas over Spring Break. We were incredibly fortunate to have had that experience at this precise moment in time. It was like the fabric of space and time was ripped open and we fell through for a week, transported through to a portal of an-other world that offered respite and a total disconnection from the realities and horrors of what has since unfolded all across India in the past few weeks. And the menu on this trek? Vegetarian carb fest. For those of you who don’t know, the keto diet is high fat, low protein and even lower carbs. Basically you eat meat/fish/dairy/eggs + veggies/salad + some nuts and perhaps a tiny bit of locally grown, in season fruit. Or berries, if you can access them. The diet on the trek was something like this each day: roti/paratha/bread + dahl/eggs + rice + veg + bread + milk chocolate/sweet desserts/other sugary delights + bread. Not keto. At all.
After three months of no carbs, the bread was delicious. And so it continued when we got back. Bread. Pasta. Cornflakes. Weetabix (the English kind, you can’t get the Aussie ones here). More bread. Toast. Vegemite on toast.
Ah, toast, one of the most underrated and delicious foods on the planet. Toast, for the past month, has become my comfort. My glass of wine so to speak, although usually in the middle of the day, rather than the evening.
I am completely anal about how my toast is made, and the preferred cook is moi. First, the bread has to be right. Sourdough, either white or multigrain, is preferred. I’ll eat other multigrain, but plain white bread is usually out. The bread must be toasted in a toaster, rather than under a grill. The level of toasting depends on the mood, the spread, and the luck of remembering when to pop the toast, since my toaster is so crappy that the function to pop based on setting is long past working. The toast can’t be too light, it needs some brown on both sides, but over browning can result in the toast being too hard and dry, so there is definitely an art to how long it should be cooked. Crappy white bread (not sourdough) tends to cook too fast and get really crunchy, not in a good way, if overcooked. If your toast does get overcooked, better that it is then a bit burnt, especially if you are having Vegemite. Vegemite tastes delicious on a piece of burnt toast, just so you know.
Once popped, the toast needs to be immediately buttered. As in, right then and there. Butter only. No margarine or any other spread. Just butter. Sorry to my vegan friends, I am sure you will beg to differ, but for my toast I really can only go for butter. Salted butter. Soft and out of the fridge is preferable, because it spreads quickly and melts onto the toast. To get the best piece of toast, the butter must be generously spread, and every corner and edge must be covered. I have been known, on many occasions, to gracefully accept a piece of toast from an unsuspecting family member, only to sneak back into the kitchen to butter the edges. I just can’t eat toast where only the middle section is covered. It’s like eating a plate of chips where only half of them have salt. Once the butter is spread — and here is a good tip, so please take note — use the butter knife to score the toast, diagonally. The butter will melt into the fabric of the toast and make for a more delicious eating experience.
And now for the spreads. Vegemite is the queen of all the spreads, the highest of all highs when it comes to toast enjoyment, for me at least. Honey is probably a close second, and my recent discovery, natural peanut butter with slices of banana on top. Cheese on toast, melted, is in another category, but up there in the top five. Preferably vintage cheddar, and only plastic cheese as a nostalgic call to the past, watching the square rise in a bubble, plastic coating intact, and gooey plastic cheese in the middle. But I digress. Vegemite is the queen, the ruler of them all. When I was young I liked such a small amount, specks of veggie dotting the toast so just a hint of the salt and flavour was apparent, and even a hint was strong and delicious. Now I like it much thicker, even totally covered like you would peanut butter, but that’s not for everyone, and for my early vegemite on toast career it was definitely light specs.
My best friend, Pip, and I used to revel in ‘tea and toast’ most afternoons and most days of every holiday. During the holidays we would come back from the beach at Pip’s beach house on the South Coast and make tea and toast. White bread, corners buttered (or possibly margarined, it was the 80s), and small specs of veggie. With our toast, Earl Grey tea and Archie comics, we would sit on the porch, blissfully enjoying our childhood ritual. At the time I never realised that this ritual would stay with me for life, and that I would be sitting here, in my Mumbai apartment, in a lockdown during a pandemic, taking comfort in this very same ritual. I didn’t know that the art of toast, the joy of vegemite and the warmth of a cup of earl grey tea could make me feel so connected to home.
I’m Australian (I mean, obviously, I’m writing about vegemite FFS). I have been all my life. I have convict ancestors, the first immigrants to Australia, brought there by the invaders. I’m eighth generation Australian, which as a white person is about as generationally connected as you can be. My husband is first generation, both his parents are immigrants, one from England, the other from the Netherlands. They were welcomed in the 50s. My father in-law was a ‘ten pound pom’. Australia wanted immigrants then, they welcomed them. I have ancestors from all over the world. Mostly Europe, but also even from the British Virgin Isles in the Caribbean. They all came to Australia seeking a better or a different life. I wonder what they would think about our land of milk and honey right now. The milk has curdled and the honey has been reclaimed by the gods.
Someone — and it wasn’t anyone in my family, although I can’t be 100% sure — brought Marmite with them, from the UK. They must have, because we ended up with Vegemite, and if you have tried both you will know that they are from the same family. Vegetable extract, from what exactly I am not sure. Black, thick and salty. Very much an acquired taste, and usually only liked by those who are brought up on it. It’s a bit like having dark soy sauce on toast, if soy sauce were a paste. An utterly delicious condiment for the initiated.
I have travelled the world. I have been to every continent except Antarctica. I have lived in Australia, England, Costa Rica and India. Everytime that I travel or move, with very few exceptions, I take vegemite. It’s like packing my toothbrush. The squeezy tubes that came out some years back were a godsend. Less weight, can’t smash. I have vegemite tales the world over. Like the time my mother-in-law sent 2 x 1kg bottles (that’s a LOT of vegemite) post restante to the Hanoi post office when we were backpacking around SE Asia in 1999. The post-office officials must have thought it was opium or something, with its colour and viscosity, and they made us open it and we had to demonstrate that it was food by eating it from a teaspoon before they would release the package. Another time my sisters visited Costa Rica, in 2016, all with jars of vegemite in tow. One smashed in the bag and another from a ball flying into a jar on the kitchen bench from my nephew, but phew, we still had one more jar and that was big enough to last 6 months. Decades of travel = decades of vegemite stories. When people visit, top of the list of what we want from Australia is always vegemite. I had an Aussie student a couple of years back who went to Australia and brought me back vegemite shapes — basically a baked vegemite snack, a bit like a Goldfish cracker but, well, vegemite flavoured and in the shape of Australia. Delicious.
Which brings me to my current self. Sitting here, having now finished my comforting vegemite on toast with earl grey tea, hoping the comfort will last. As I mentioned before, I found out this morning that as Australians living in India we are now officially and 100% stateless. We are locked out of Australia, and if by any miracle we could find a way into the country, just because we are in India at this present moment, on May 1st 2021, we could go to jail. I am asking myself how something so very Australian, a piece of vegemite on toast, could be the thing I turn to for comfort, when the country has abandoned me, and every Australian who is currently in India.
As I think on this, I realise it’s not really the vegemite, it’s the ritual. It’s the memories of a childhood, idyllic in its simplicity, of enduring friendships and shared histories, of family reunions. It’s travelling and relishing those memories, and the connection of vegemite that always brings us home. Home to our memories and the place we feel loved. We might be abandoned by our government, but not by our friends and families. And we take comfort in that, and it gets us through another day.
