Peanut butter and Marmite
Every Monday morning, I sit down in front of my computer with absolutely no idea what I’m going to write about. I need a powerful breakfast to cope with this weekly terror, so last Monday I toasted a piece of Orwashers seeded rye, spread it thickly with freshly ground peanut butter, and on top added a thin layer of Marmite. The toast was perfect; it was rich and full of protein so I wouldn’t get distracted wondering if I was still hungry (my favorite way to avoid writing). The savoriness of the Marmite was less intense than when eaten only with butter. I liked that it wasn’t sweet, since a sugary breakfast can throw me off-kilter for the day. It reminded me of West African peanut stew or Indonesian satay sauce. I ate it every day for a week.
Marmite and peanut butter! Not a combination I’ve tried before, though apparently popular enough for the Marmite company to have released their own spread. Two ingredients so culturally specific to particular childhoods that people who didn’t grow up with them tend to wrinkle their noses. I was raised on a mostly white-American diet with all the PB&J sandwiches that that entails (~1,500 before high school), but my dad’s family lives in the U.K. so I was introduced to Marmite-and-cheese through my cousins. Both spreads exist in their respective cultural imaginations as children’s food, comfort food, convenience food, student food, cheap food.
Peanuts originated in South America, where they were cultivated for thousands of years before European colonization spread them across the world. They’re grown today in tropical and subtropical regions from India to Australia. In West Africa, they’re similar enough to the native Bambara groundnut that they’ve become integrated into traditional recipes like peanut stew, versions of which ended up in the American south through slavery. Peanuts were likely ground into pastes by the Aztecs and Incas, but peanut butter in its modern form arose in the late 1800s, with the help of food-reformer/capitalist John Kellog. An early version of Skippy was shipped off with American soldiers during WWII, which is probably when the peanut butter and jelly sandwich was “invented.” After the war, it was marketed to American housewives. Companies like Hershey printed cookie recipes on their packaging which deepened our association with baking and sugar. Today, peanut butter represents half of American total peanut consumption.
Marmite is a concentrated form of brewer’s yeast that was first commercialized by the Marmite company in England in 1902. Like peanut butter, it became a staple of wartime cuisine during the world wars and then advertised to mothers as a healthy supplement for children. The well-known divisiveness of the flavor and smell was partially manufactured by the brand itself, with a “Love it or Hate it” campaign in the 90s that encouraged people to share their strong positive or negative feelings. It’s one of those brands that’s managed to elicit a cult following and spawned countless applications and recipes by home cooks, which is why my marmite-and-peanut-butter toast is hardly original. In addition to peanut butter Marmite, the company also sells a truffle flavor, XO, and chili, and in the past has made chocolate and Guinness.
I’m sure that when Marmite came out with the peanut butter flavor, it elicited a similar reaction as people had to Tribe’s chocolate hummus or that NYT pea guacamole recipe. Perversions of classic foods are usually subjected to a firehose of ridicule online. Some of it comes from a valid place. Cultural appropriation is a problem for food media, with the traditionally powerful frequently raising their status by introducing ingredients that historically have been eaten by less powerful people of color. Marmite and peanut butter are both “white” ingredients, which makes them a little less loaded. Since there’s already presumed knowledge of what they are and how they’re used in the dominant cultural context, any deviations are understood to be intentional. When there isn’t that knowledge, and, say, a white influencer is presenting an ingredient in a nontraditional way, then it feels less respectful.
Still, I think it’s worth separating criticism of an authority figure from disgust at the food itself. In my No Recipe cooking improv workshops, I have a rule: “Don’t yuck anyone’s yum.” Disgust has a powerful chilling effect on creativity, and the point of my workshop is to create a space where people feel safe enough to experiment. Far more people are worried about whether they’re cooking the “right” way than they are profiting off cultural appropriation. The only real sin against food that I observe is a lack of attention. If something has a delicate taste, for example, and it’s being thrown in with stuff that bulldozes its quality, then maybe a better choice could have been made. But I don’t really know what you’re tasting. Usually my goal is just to help you achieve the vision in your mind.
The threads of history that wind together into the food in our kitchens are too tangled to worry about the right way to use all of them. There are way too many creative humans on this planet, so anything you can think of has probably been tried already by a first generation immigrant recreating a dish with foreign ingredients or a high teenager struck by inspiration. If you care about food, learn about it — find out where it comes from and how people have used it — for fun or to make you a better cook. But not everything we eat needs to have historical precedent. Take this as your license to make the weirdest most outrageous and perfect meal, and see yourself there, on the plate.
What I’m Cooking
Nutty eggplant salad with tomatoes and herbs
Friday’s recipe is a good example of a dish that resembles several from around the world but mixes too many elements to really be like any of them. There’s an Indian peanut sauce, with spices like cumin and coriander, but also pomegranate syrup, used a lot in Iranian cuisine. When paired with eggplant, the effect is a little like tahini. Burst cherry tomatoes add some juiciness and herbs add freshness. It all just works.