Originally published The Clifton Courier, May 26, 2021

I recently read a column from a TV chef called Adam Liaw about how annoying it was that those “nostalgic comfort foods” we see popping up at restaurants and on cooking shows are very, very American – think mac and cheese. 

His argument was that, while these dishes were undoubtedly delicious, they weren’t the actual food of our dinky di Australian childhoods. I typically agree with most things this guy comes out with, making him my second favourite person to follow on Twitter – behind the official Twitter account for Paddington Bear. And aside from the point he made a while back that you absolutely can bake with salted butter, this is the point I perhaps agree with the most vehemently. 

Because while whether or not you can miss something you never had in the first place is an argument best had over a bottle of wine instead of in this column, I’m going to go ahead and say that you can’t long for the food of your childhood if you didn’t actually eat that food as a child. 

When I think of the ultimate comfort food of my childhood, there’s really only one dish that cuts the mustard (I mean, there’s also the Maggi Two Minute Chicken Noodle sandwich on white bread with lots of butter, but that’s not really a recipe, that’s a lifestyle choice).  

It’s Tiger Toast.  

Tiger Toast sounds very simple – Vegemite on toast with strips of Bega cheese grilled into it – and that’s the beauty of it.  

It’s something I remember Mum making for us when she didn’t have the time or the energy to cook. And that was pretty rare, actually. So if Mum wasn’t cooking us dinner, it was because something was either wrong or very out of the ordinary.  

I’m not sure how accurately my memory serves me, but I recall it being something we’d eat while Dad was working away. But we’d only really ever have Tiger Toast for tea – we didn’t call the evening meal “dinner” back then – when someone was sick or we’d arrived home late.  

When it was just us girls, there was a distinct Little Women (I’m talking the 1994 version with Winona Rider and Susan Sarandon, not that newfangled one with the open ending and all those colours) vibe in the house. I mean, we were discussing the plot of Home and Away instead the ideas of German philosophers and Father wasn’t out fighting in the Civil War, he was laying powerlines, but the vibe was there. We were more cooperative and kinder to each other and there was this overwhelming feeling of cosiness. 

It felt like it was us against the world, but with some white bread, Bega cheese and yeast spread, Mum made us feel like everything was going to be OK. And there was a novelty to having something like Tiger Toast for tea, like it was a little treat for our special little club.  

So when I’m in need, Tiger Toast gives me that wearing-pyjamas-warmed-by-the-fireplace kind of feeling. It’s also a great food for when it’s cold outside, you’ve got no one to impress and you’re feeling lazy.  

I… I’ve made it more than a few times lately.  

Here’s how I did it the other night: 

Step one: You have to pre-toast the toast, which I suppose means you could also call this thrice-cooked bread. I mean, you could just toast it once, but you want a bit of crunch here to offset the sogginess of melted cheese. If I was going for complete accuracy, I’d go with white bread. But because I’m a fancy grown up, I’m going with a slightly more gourmet brown bread. I feel like something crusty and sourdough-y would be good too, but I’m not fancy enough to have that just laying around the house. 

Step two: While I wait for the bread to toast – it’s currently just bread; it doesn’t become toast until it’s toasted – I open a 380 gram jar of Vegemite*. It’s brand new. There’s a smooth top, which I obviously pat gently with the pad of my finger because I’m only human.  

* It will probably be with me for life, because it’s quite a large jar and I’m sorry for sounding unAustralian, but in circumstances that don’t call for Tiger Toast, I’m actually more of a Promite person. It’s sweeter and often easier to spread. The good thing about either spread is that they don’t age. I mean, sure, there’s probably an expiry date, but that’s just arbitrary. A jar of Vegemite will outlast me and the children of the children I’m worried that I might never have. It’s got staying power.

Step three: Now the bread has transformed into toast, I smear some butter on it. Now, I suppose you don’t really need butter as there’s going to be plenty of cheese later, however, I will also remind you that this is a comfort food. Butter is essential.  

Step four: Time for the Vegemite. This is one of those times when it’s actually appropriate to entirely cover the bread in Vegemite. However, we’re not animals, so keep it to a thin coating. I mean, don’t go smearing on it like it’s Nutella.  

Step five: I’d planned to use Bega cheese for this, but the hunk I’d left in the fridge thinking “you know what, you’re probably going to need a little comfort Bega, better hang on to that” had gone completely mouldy so I had to chuck that out. Luckily, have multiple other types of cheese in the fridge as any resourceful woman in the dying months of her 20s would. I grab some Red Leicester cheese I’d bought a while back but never ended up opening. However, the use by date suggests it’s still very, very safe, so it’s going on. And this is a little oranger than the Bega stuff, so it’s more tiger-like, aesthetically speaking. I slice it into thin strips and lay them on the bread.  

Step six: I’m still pretty unfamiliar with my oven, so I crank it up to the hottest temperature and put it on the grill function. Then I leave the bread underneath the glowing red element for about five minutes, checking to hear that sweet, sweet sound of melted cheese bubbling.  

Step seven: I pull it out of the oven and see the stripes of Red Leicester have completely lost their form and decide this Tiger Toast should be called Lion Toast instead while I sit on my couch and watch reruns of a show I’ve seen many, many times before. Comfort food at its finest.