Marmite Epiphany

Whilst scraping the last remnants of my pot of Marmite on to my crumpets yesterday, I suddenly realised that I was about to do something I can never remember having done before: throwing an empty Marmite pot in the bin. How can this be? How can I eat as much Marmite as I do and never get to the end of a pot?

My theory: that for nearly all my adult life I have been on one posting or another with the Foreign Office. That Marmite has never been available in the country to which I have been posted so I have therefore gone armed with large pots of the stuff.... and that I have never lived long enough in a country to get through a big pot of Marmite. The pot would probably have lasted all the longer for the fact that crumpets are not available outside of the UK either. But... well, it goes to show what a long shelf life Marmite has, doesn't it? Does it ever go off? What on earth is it made of? What exactly IS Marmite - I need answers!

Saying that, I do seem to remember one pot of the stuff being emptied in Geneva. My friend Jean-Luc, having tasted Marmite for the first time, had taken a great liking to it, first of all spreading it on toast like it was jam and then deciding it was so lovely he wanted to eat the rest of it with a spoon, which he promptly proceded to do. One pot of Marmite, gone in less than 10 minutes. Strange bunch of people, the Swiss. At least he got to the bottom of a pot though, which is more than I managed to do until the grand old age of 35!