Nigella Lawson doesn't just like Marmite, she cooks with it, building a whole spaghetti dish around it and defending it as offering 'saltiness and savouriness the way a stock cube might'. Firmly, and deliciously, on the love side.
Love It or Hate It Phenomenon
The polarizing nature of Marmite: taste science, genetic factors, psychological aspects, and the "Marmite effect" as a cultural metaphor.
Category: Love It or Hate It Phenomenon | View all articles
Florence Pugh and Marmite: the Oscar nominee who put it on toast for the nation
During lockdown, Oscar nominee Florence Pugh filmed herself making Marmite on toast with real care, and one firm rule: the butter goes on slightly cold so it only half melts into the hot toast. A genuine lover, particular about the details.
Graham Norton and Marmite: the chat-show king who can't stand it
Graham Norton cannot stand Marmite, and has said so plainly. He even reached for it on Eurovision, calling one entry 'like Marmite, if everyone hated Marmite'. A useful name on the hate side from a man whose whole brand is warmth.
Paul McCartney and Marmite: the Beatle who hides it in a three-decker bagel
Sir Paul McCartney, a vegetarian since the 1970s, is a Marmite lover who built it into an elaborate layered bagel with a dark scrape of Marmite at the base. The salty, savoury hit is exactly the kind of flavour a long-time vegetarian leans on.
Helen Mirren and Marmite: the Dame who would happily do the advert
Dame Helen Mirren is a cheerful, unhedged Marmite lover, to the point of saying she would happily front an advert for it. For an actress known for regal poise, planting her flag so firmly on the love side is a small, human thing to put on the record.
Billy Bragg and Marmite: the Bard of Barking who put it in a song
Most people manage a sentence about Marmite. Billy Bragg put it in a song: the title track of 'England, Half English' pictures a breakfast of 'Marmite soldiers washed down with a cappuccino'. You don't reach for Marmite as shorthand for home unless you genuinely eat it.
Famous people on Marmite: the celebrities who love it and the ones who can't stand it
The Marmite A-List: famous faces and their real, sourced Marmite verdicts, from Daniel Craig and Helen Mirren to Madonna and Gary Lineker. Lovers and haters, all on the record, with the genuine quotes named and dated. Updated as new names are added.
Daniel Craig and Marmite: the James Bond star who was once 'Mr Marmite'
Before he was James Bond, Daniel Craig handed out samples as 'Mr Marmite' at a Reading supermarket, the job that earned him his Equity card. And despite the rumours, he is a lover: asked his biggest misconception, he chose 'That I don't like Marmite?'
The internet was arguing about Marmite in 1985
We treat 'love it or hate it' as if the 1996 advert invented it. The OED traces Marmite to a 1985 post on a Usenet cooking group explaining the jar to Americans: people fall into two groups, those who love it and those who would not stay in the same room as it. The divide, online, eleven years early.
The first Marmite man was Rab C Nesbitt
The OED dates the adjective 'Marmite' to a single 1994 citation. Look at what it actually is and you find a Sandwell Evening Mail review calling Gregor Fisher's Rab C Nesbitt 'the Marmite man of comedy.' By the dictionary's own reckoning, the first Marmite man wore a string vest.
