Bovril’s infallible power
Nations are built from eating habits as well as masterpieces. In Britain, there’s one that is both: Bovril. This thick, salty meat extract paste may not be as wise as George Eliot’s Middlemarch, as beguiling as Rossetti’s ‘Proserpine’, or as symbolic of greatness as the Palace of Westminster – and yet it has a clear place among our nation’s intangible cultural assets. As both a spread and a drink, Bovril may be just a wartime ration, a tonic for invalids or a companion on football terraces but it still marks a serious, if ordinary, contribution to our common life. That contribution, however, may now be under threat.
