A Skeptic Tries is a series examining our food resistances and what happens when we try them anyway. Next up, contributing writer Kate McAuley reluctantly gives Vegemite Pizza a go.
Here I am, casually thumbing through Instagram on an unseasonably warm October morning, when a video featuring Giovanni Fabiano, an Italian-born, Brooklyn-based pizza chef, pops up in my feed. Normally, my under-caffeinated brain would have kept on scrolling, but something odd catches my eye: this sweet-faced Don of the Dough is sporting a corduroy cap emblazoned with none other than the distinctive red and yellow logo of Australia’s beloved Vegemite. My beloved Vegemite.
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With mild horror, I, an Aussie living in New York City, watch on as Giovanni adds a generous squirt of my favorite sandwich spread onto a classic pie at the restaurant he owns, Rosa’s Pizza, in Williamsburg. He then showers it with shredded mozzarella and slides it into a Marsal oven. According to the chef, an official Vegemite ambassador, we Aussies have been eating Vegemite all wrong. “You put it on toast, I make pizza with it,” he proclaims in the promo video. “It tastes like Australia.” Alright, mate, I’ll be the judge of that.
For the uninitiated, Vegemite is a thick, dark brown, supremely salty spread that is made from a heady mix of leftover brewer’s yeast and a few other additions, including malt, folate, and riboflavin. Developed in Australia in 1922, it was our direct answer to the United Kingdom’s popular and older, but far inferior Marmite. As a kid, it was a staple in my family’s pantry because of its high levels of B vitamins (that’s 1980s wellness for you) and all-around deliciousness. The latter, however, is a fact that I’m yet to convince my U.S. friends of, no matter what Giovanni says.