Prison Gastronomy: Vegemite As A Cultural Right

Should criminals be allowed the softening joys of favourite foods and longed for staples? The overcooked roast, the undercooked dumpling? And, for Australians, a foodstuff (hardly a food) so reprehensible it would draw disapproval from any respectable panel from UNESCO? Last month, Andre McKenchnie, a convicted murderer detained at Victoria’s Barwon Prison, attempted to test the judicial waters that not being allowed to consume the famous yeast spread of Vegemite was a denial of human rights under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act, specifically the right to “enjoy his culture” as an Australian. The state of Victoria banned Vegemite in 2006 citing concerns that it impaired the effectiveness of narcotic detection dogs. Another concern was that its yeast properties gave the potential to be used in making alcohol.

For those unfamiliar or uninitiated, Vegemite, an Australian spread developed in the 1920s as a Vitamin B rich product and alternative to Britain’s marmite, is a frequent breakfast addition, spread on bread or crackers. Its salt-savoury taste does not recommend itself to many palates. Its unappetising nature is evidenced by its composition, which hails from being a byproduct of beer: 40% water, 13% carbohydrate, 31% protein, 5 to 6% yeast and minerals, and 8% salt. In March 2011, during a visit to Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia with US President Barack Obama, the then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard provided guidance on how best to consume the product: “The beginner’s error with Vegemite is to put too much on a piece of bread or piece of toast. You don’t put it on like jam or anything like that. You’ve got to do it very lightly, spread it very thinly. And it’s good.” Obama thought it “horrible”.

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Vegemite’s dubious gastronomic qualities have failed to impress certain food authorities outside Australia. In April last year, Leighton Walters, an Australian café owner in Toronto, Canada, was told by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to remove the Vegemite jars from his shelves. The food inspector’s reason for issuing the direction was because of the added vitamin B. “But most of it,” countered Walters, “is naturally formed through the fermentation process.” The product, much like an admired if problematic lover, had been “misunderstood”. The inspector also expressed little interest in the cultural freight Vegemite had for Australians. This even prompted a grumbling intervention from the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who could not understand why Canada was allowing the “rubbish” rival product Marmite to take precedence. A review of the decision by Health Canada subsequently “determined that the level of risk to human health from the added vitamins present in the product is low when consumed in suggested serving sizes”.

In his submission to the Victorian Supreme Court (he was representing himself), McKechnie argued that, “Without being able to consume Vegemite, I feel deprived of being able to practice by Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community.” The food was associated with family and the family home. “I consider Vegemite and my consumption of Vegemite to be an integral part of the practice of my Australian culture.” Published literature on the importance of the food was also suggested to guide the court, with McKechnie having come across an article in the food studies journal Gastronomica, claiming that Vegemite “may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world. That is, if you eat Vegemite, you are almost certainly Australian.”

Health reasons were also marshalled for the cause, though these were eventually abandoned: McKechnie had argued that his deficiency in vitamin B1 was partially caused by his inability to access the spread. It would be an important daily source of thiamine.

McKechnie further pointed out that New South Wales permitted the consumption of Vegemite within its prison system, revealing that “less restrictive means” were “reasonably available” to satisfy the security objectives of the prison authorities. As for whether smell could be used to mask illegal drugs, a 2017 article published in a Melbourne newspaper disproved that very point, as the man referred to in the piece had failed to smuggle the masked drugs into a music festival using Vegemite. On this point, the Victorian prison authorities remained unmoved. “Any odour, such as Vegemite, which is pungent, would distract a canine from detecting the illicit drugs they are trained to detect,” testified the manager of Corrections Victoria, Kevin White. The claim that the spread could also be used as a way of accelerating the process of making “home-brew” alcohol was also reiterated.

Some criminologists failed to find much merit to the department’s reasons for the ban. Nathan Ryan of the Australian Catholic University was of the view that sniffer dogs were a well-trained, canny bunch, able to “detect traces of things in the parts per trillion. It would be very unlikely Vegemite would be able to mask contraband.”

In her judgment, Supreme Court judge Claire Harris rejected the claim by the prisoner while accepting that restrictions had been imposed. While acknowledging that the food in question “may be regarded as part of an Australian culture in that it is a food strongly and traditionally associated with people of Australian background,” the judge observed that the convict’s “cultural rights are limited primarily by the fact that he has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment.” With a disciplinarian’s stiffness in logic, the judge also expressed her difficulty accepting that feelings of sadness and isolation had been occasioned by a lack of Vegemite. These had arisen, rather, by the very fact of being in prison.

McKechnie had also failed to demonstrate that the Vegemite ban breached the state’s Corrections Act, which mandates the need to supply prisoners with food to maintain their health and wellbeing. The laws in question “did not extend to an obligation to provide to prisoners foods of cultural significance to enhance their wellbeing.” That said, his Jewish background was accounted for by virtue of a daily hot Kosher dinner, and a weekly box of Kosher foodstuffs, including bread, cheese, smallgoods and breakfast items. Prison authorities, however, can be a silly, paranoid lot.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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