OK, does the name Marmite mean anything to you?

For many Americans, at least, Marmite doesn’t mean anything, but in the UK, Marmite generates passionate responses – as the advertising campaign says “Love it. Hate it. Just don’t forget it.”

I think I probably first had Marmite as an infant in England…we then moved to upstate NY (where i suspect we did NOT have Marmite), but then, when i was four years old, we traveled to Sri Lanka, where they definitely did have Marmite.

In fact, one of my memories is of my grandmother washing my hair, and, for some reason, she would pile the foam from my head into empty Marmite jars that lined the bathtub. I can’t for the life of me remember why we were collecting shampoo foam, or what happened to the full jars after my bath.

When we came back to the US, we settled in with my mother’s parents in Southern California. I entered kindergarten, and my mother would pack sandwiches of extra-thin sliced white bread with a layer of Marmite in the middle. At the lunch table, the other kids asked me what was in my sandwich, and I told them. They laughed at me and said that because I had an accent, I couldn’t say marmalade! So, I gave one kid a taste of my sandwich, and they didn’t doubt me again!

I have had Marmite in my house, as a constant feature of my pantry. It has a long shelf-life. It’s not something I go to every day, but I get a hankering for the taste, and it gives me comfort.

So, when the pandemic hit, I was yearning, as so many of us were, for comfort. And, for me Marmite = comfort. And I came upon an article that mentioned that you could order 600 grams of Marmite online. So I did – twice (accidentally)!! I finally worked my way through one, and have started on the second tub. It’s kind of amazing to have such a large supply. I’m tempted to keep buying it in this size (it’s so much easier to scoop out of this tub then out of the small little rounded pots that are in the store).

The one problem? It’s not kosher. I’ve searched this issue for years, and hadn’t found a satisfactory answer (ie, it looked like Marmite wasn’t Kosher, but I couldn’t understand why…). I finally found the answer here.

Is Marmite kosher?

Only Marmite 70g is kosher: the rest of the range is not.

www.marmite.co.uk/faq.html

So, what’s the deal?

Apparently, they have dedicated an area of their production line to make the 70g jars that they don’t also use to make Bovril, which is a beef-based, making the other sizes of Marmite not kosherable. 70g?? that’s a tiny size. the standard jar you buy in a store is 250g. The 70g jar was apparently manufactured specifically for travel. I run through the 250g size in just 3-4 servings (because i do NOT spread it thinly, i like a nice thick smear – I’ll even eat it from a spoon by itself!).

So, I’m sticking with buying the 600g size, realizing that this compromises the kashrut status of my kitchen…for those of you who care, this may impact your decision to eat in my home. I can tell you that I only use my small salad plates, and my dairy butter knives when i get my Marmite fix, so my cookware is not treif!

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Addendum: after posting this, I noticed that I had posted at least once before about Marmite (this is one of those advantages of blogging, because the software can identify related posts better than I could possibly remember). Here it is, and it shows that I’ve treifed up at least one of my mugs!