Monday, March 19, 2007

Trivia Pur$uit

Vegemite, the famous Australian spread for toast and sandwiches, was developed in 1923 by a Melbourne chemist, Cyril P. Callister, at the request of local cheese merchant Fred Walker, who had the contract to supply yeast for Carlton and United Breweries. The name was chosen from entries in a national competition - but there is no record of who won the first prize of fifty pounds.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, what about Marmite? I thought they were the same product, basically, or made by the same people - never looked closely!

I think I've had Vegemite once, but Marmite tasted better!

david mcmahon said...

Interesting comment. I grew up with Marmite, which was the English product.

Vegemite came much later and was the Aussie product. It was actually called ``Parwill'' to start with - as in ``Ma might'' and ``Pa will''.

There's a bit of extra trivia for you.

Cheers

David