The nature vs nurture of food: 01 (Marmite)

 

Marmite (MBP dictionary)

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a dark savoury spread made from yeast extract and vegetable extract.

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There is a term in English: the marmite effect.

(MBP dictionary)

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• used in reference to something that tends to arouse strongly positive or negative reactions rather than indifference

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I grew up with marmite being a constant item in the kitchen.

    My family’s routine was for the domestic help to be the first to get up, cook a pot of rice porridge and brew a flask of coffee, ready for tapping into.

    The kind of Chinese rice porridge varies with each region.  

    The Cantonese version (粥 zhōu, called "chook/jook" in Cantonese) is an all-in-one, with various sorts of chopped up stuff in it, e.g., minced pork cooked in the rice, giving it flavour; thinly sliced pig’s liver and raw egg poached by the piping hot porridge poured over them; spring onion sprinkled on top at the end.

    My dialect group (潮州 / Cháozhōu / Teochew, in S.E.China) is a bland-food group, so our version (called "muay" in Teochew) is plain rice porridge eaten with mostly pickles. 

 

    The idea is that one doesn’t overload the digestive system first thing in the morning (or throughout the day, when one’s ill) with meat (cf. bacon and sausage in a traditional English breakfast), or fried food (therefore no omelette/scrambled egg, or even stir-fried veg, as there’s still oil in a stir-fried dish).  The combination of plain rice porridge and pickles is also a clean taste for the palette, so it’s not a shock to the system straight after one gets out of bed. 

    From as far back as I can remember (aged 5 at least), I had been a night owl, and therefore a late riser.  

    On school days, I’d make up for lost time by multi-tasking when it came to getting ready for school:  stir some marmite into my rice porridge; then get out of my pyjamas, a spoonful of porridge; put on my school uniform, a spoonful of porridge; put on my socks and shoes, a spoonful of porridge. 

    When I came to London, I discovered that a chap at university also liked marmite.  Being a Westerner, his way of eating it was to spread it on toast — which I found odd.  When I told him I’d eat my marmite with rice porridge, he found it odd.  Recently, I found out that some Mauritians, who are into marmite as well, it seems, stir marmite into their Western-style oat porridge, which I find odd.

    Horses for courses, as the saying goes.

(Singapore, 1960s / early 1970s; London, 1978)