The Origins Of Marmite By Captain James Tea Cook - Pirate of the Carob Bean
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| Captain James Tea Cook |
A little known fact be that one o my great ancestors, Captain James Cook, who was fair fond o aboriginals and their practices, discovered what we take fer granted as Marmite on one of his trips to Botany bay in Australia.
Much is documented about his 1772 'discovery' of the magical medicinal Tea Tree Oil even though the aborigines already knew where it was, what it was, how it could be used medicinally and why it be good for you.
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| Marmitine Tree- delicious sap |
Far less is recounted about Captain James Cook's discovery of Marmite which ended up being such a hoo ha and a blighted stain on Australian history books. Used by Aboriginals to make dull food, like snake's brain and weird green vegetables, taste nice and to ward off mosquitos, the sap of The Marmitine tree was revered and traded like gold, worth more than it's weight in Rum.
The salty sea dogs what purported to arrange themselves as Captain Cook's crew fell on the sap with unfettered voracious lust. They just couldn't get enough o the stuff that made even the ship's hard tack biscuits taste good, with or without weevils!
Very soon every Marmitine tree in Australia had been raped, pillaged and bled to extinction - the aborigines as you can imagine were livid which is the real reason why the Autralian Government perpetrated such heinous crimes against the continent's native people.
Despite modern food manufacturers attempts to recreate the sap and brew a similar tasting fluid the best they could come up with is 'Marmite' named after a French casserole dish.Whilst the original sap would melt every taste bud and en-trance all who tasted it, the manufactured copy, Marmite, can only claim to win half the hearts of the nation with almost as many people hating it as loving it.
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| Marmite - Cult Following |
The Australian attempt at recreating the original now extinct sap, Veggiemite, is mainly patronised by a small group, though widely distributed, of back packing barmaids who originated from the suburbs of Sydney. The Austrailian Veggiemite tastes like it's been made with a sweet Norweigian cheese called Gjetost which leaves one with undoubtable conclusion that they should have got some original Aborigines to help make it. I'm guessing though that even Aborigines don't live that long - they'd have to be 250 years old, perhaps if they went into dreamtime?
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