History of Russian dressing

Russian dressing is not Russian and it is not for salads, but more of a sandwich spread – usually a Reuben. Russian dressing is a creamy, slightly spicy, salmon-hued spread made from mayonnaise, ketchup, sour cream, prepared horseradish, and dill relish.

The mayo and ketchup concoction was created in Nashua, New Hampshire. The earliest reference to Russian dressing, is from a 1911 menu for the Gridiron Club. Salads with Russian dressing were fashionable before World War I.

It was grocer James E. Colburn who invented the spread. Colburn had been selling "Colburn's Mayonnaise salad dressing" at his store since at least 1910. While running that business he hit upon the idea of a Russian salad dressing. By 1914, Colburn's company was manufacturing it, and distributing it to retailers and hotels.

The Washington Post cites the 1927 text, which says Colburn sold the condiment to “retailers and hotels across the country, earning ‘wealth on which he was enabled to retire.’”

Contrary to its name, it did not originate in Russia but rather was supposedly created in New Hampshire and called “Russian dressing” because it originally contained caviar, a staple of Russian cuisine. Some say Colburn liked to mix in caviar, or perhaps because it sometimes was added to the Russian-inspired Salad Olivier.
History of Russian dressing

History of Vegemite

Introduced in 1922 by a fellow named Dr Cyril P Callister at Fred Walker Cheese Company, Vegemite was created in an attempt to figure out what to do with brewery waste.

The spread was made from brewer’s yeast and was contained in an amber jar. In 1923, a competition was run to name this delicious new spread. The prize for the name Vegemite was fifty pounds but the name of the winning contestant has since been lost.

Vegemite was not a very big hit in Australia until the Great Depression smacked into the world in 1929.

When the depression hit, parents were concerned about how to pack the most nutrition into the most people for the least amount of money. Vegemite provided a solution, being very high in B vitamins and very inexpensive.

In 1926, the company became known as the Kraft Walker Cheese Company, after the c0ompany merged with American food giant Kraft.

The Kraft Foods has achieved a history of success by doing nothing to the original product and only updating external factors such as packaging and the occasional consumer promotion.
History of Vegemite

History of Marmite (food spread)

Marmite is a gluten free, vegetarian spread developed as a meat free alternative to Bovril by the Marmite Food Extract Company in Burton upon Trent in 1902.

Marmite is made from spent brewer’s yeast; a large fraction of Britain’s waste brewer’s yeast in recycled into Marmite.

The idea for making such as yeasts extract goes back to the great German chemist Justus von Liebig. He developed the process of extracting essences of ingredients, particularly from meat.

Liebig built on Louis Pasteur’s work on yeast figuring out that it could self digest and produce and edible paste. Marmite has been manufactured in an essentially unchanged form in Burton-in-Trent since 1902.

Marmite Food Extract Company ran with Liebig’s yeast extract research and foisted the black spread upon an unsuspecting nation in 1902.

This yeast extract became known as Marmite. The company began to produce this product at Burton on Trent.

Vitamins were discovered in 1912, and Marmite contains a large amount of them, which certainly helped its image and popularity.

Since 2000 it’s been owned by Unilever, proprietors of Persil, Domestos, Colman’s Cif, Cornetto, and impulse.
History of Marmite (food spread)