Marmite

It's brown-black, sticky, comes in a small jar and smells rancid to the untrained nose. More than the royal family (other countries have them), or tea (there are other cultures based around that), Marmite is the quintessential British thing.

Conversations about Marmite with non-Brits often go something like this:

Non-Brit: Eugh! What's that you're spreading on your toast?

Brit: Marmite.

Non-Brit: Marmite? What in the hell is that? Looks like catshit.

Brit: Well, I suppose the actual definition is "yeast extract."

Non-Brit: Yeast? Like the stuff they use to make bread?

(Picks up jar and sniffs warily. Face recoils in disgust.)

You actually eat this?

Brit (smiling, teeth blackening from a mouth full of Marmite on toast): Indeed!

They do eat it, and in large quantities. Twenty-four million jars a year. Purists claim it should only be consumed spread thinly with butter on toast, but the plucky Brits have discovered other ways of enjoying their pungent paste. Marmite on crumpets. Marmite and cheese. Marmite in gravy. Marmite in mashed potatoes.

The baffling question to a foreigner who has come into contact with Marmite is simply: Why?

Maybe because like that other great acquired taste, Guinness, Marmite is good for you. It's vegetarian and contains five forms of vitamin B (niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, folic acid and vitamin B12), which are good for glycosis (part of respiration) and producing proteins and blood cells. Little wonder, then, that Marmite is sent to soldiers on duty and carried by mountaineers and explorers. Or that it is fed to kids from a very young age — it's often said you have to be forcefully brought up on Marmite to appreciate it.

Even then, the term "appreciate" is difficult to swallow. Other, better-tasting stuff is good for you. But the British fondness for Marmite is one that starts young and carries right through to adulthood. Most Marmite lovers have been eating it for as long as they can remember, and it's unlikely they will ever stop loving it. Modest Marmite has taken the form of a national institution, linking young and old, rich and poor, gourmet chefs and midnight snackers. And while the affection is not universal (for its centenary advertising campaign last year the manufacturers played on the fact that you either love or hate Marmite, and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood created a limited edition T-shirt on the idea), it is about more than flavor or the nutritional benefits.

There is no shame in loving Marmite. There is a great deal of good old-fashioned, insular pride. Marmite is marketed only in Britain. (It is exported to 30 countries worldwide, but purely for expats who cannot live without their fix.) Former sports minister Tony Banks proposed an early day motion last year to celebrate a 100 years of Marmite with a parliamentary debate in the House of Commons. The debate never came, but the motion said, "We take intense satisfaction from the essential Britishness of the product and its lack of appeal for the majority of the world's population."

Britain lauds its cultural diversity — there's an argument for chicken tikka masala to be proclaimed the national dish — but it clings to the things it can call its own. (This shouldn't be seen as jingoistic xenophobia, more an affirmation of the country's perennial characteristic: idiosyncrasy.) So in the face of a Europe that wants Marmite eaters to measure things in meters and kilograms and use its funny money, as well as foreign policy seemingly being decided by another country's president, and of a culture soaked with trans-Atlantic imports, Marmite is a reminder that there are some British things that will always be safe. It is simply too quirky to be appropriated or destroyed by anyone else. The rest of the world just doesn't understand, and when tucking into a plate of meticulously prepared Marmite-on-toast, that's a large part of the appeal.

— Louis Cooke (louis@mintcake.com)