The Vegemite Conversion Kit - Writers Forum

monkpeabody · 08-26-2004, 11:01 AM

The Vegemite Conversion Kit

-The secret to business success is finding a hole in the market and filling it with a ridiculously high priced product that has little or no real value-
“A graduate of some American business school”

Any Australian will tell you how ridiculous it is to believe that every Australian has a pet kangaroo, that Steve Irwin & Crocodile Dundee are typical Aussies or that Most Australians ingest on a daily basis a dark, sticky, yeast based, foul smelling paste… Sorry that last one is actually true.
Vegemite…For decades Vegemite has been a basic staple of the Australian diet. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, Australians love the stuff. (Brits too… but sometimes it’s Promite or Marmite I’ve tried them all and I can’t make any distinction)

The way I heard it… it was discovered years ago by brewers who were trying to keep Australians supplied with beer and I imagine because of the incredible workload & responsibility involved with creating “liquid gold” they found just enough time to scrape their bread on the bottom of the barrels and feed on the thick yeasty residue that had collected there.
A tradition was born!
But the rich & sticky history of the mighty mite does not stop there.

The way I heard it … During World War II there was a legendary incident involving two German spies that had been painstakingly trained to impersonate Australians by the greatest minds German intelligence could assemble.
Their ingenious plan nearly succeeded! The two spies had managed to secure positions at the very heart of the Allied military intelligence structure, until during an innocent breakfast meeting all their training came undone.
During that breakfast one of the two did what they warned & trained not to do.
Without thinking, he ate a piece of toast smeared with Vegemite that was ironically there to make the two “Australian” officers feel at home.
Even with all his training there was no way he could hide his revulsion.
In that moment the course of WWII was changed.

Now in 2004, a time when Australia is accepting a great number of foreign-born citizens that have been politically displaced and come to Oz looking for freedom.
Middle easterners, Africans…Americans, who are unable to join in that core breakfast ritual of vegemite and toast and through that, solidify their assimilation into Australian society.
This sad condition would have continued if it were not for the tireless efforts of an Ex-Pat American visionary who longed to devise a way to make Vegemite (the food 90% of the world’s starving millions would refuse to eat) palatable.
The process is nothing short of revolutionary but very secret.
All I can really tell you is that it involves soybeans, simple sugars and it erases every positive nutritional element that exists in Vegemite.
As is the case with most American innovations it addresses a surface issue, does some real damage and ignores all the substance.
Putting those small deficits aside never again will an American have to explain why he can’t eat Vegemite.
Finally… we can all be happy little Vegemites!

petrel} · 08-27-2004, 08:41 PM

I ate vegemite once. *shudder* But, then, I don't like beer either.

Xan · 08-27-2004, 09:27 PM

Errrrrr...... Marmite........ errrr..... what can really be said about marmite? I have no idea how you've managed to make an interestinge piece of work out of marmite..... but then, all things are possible!

Any more?

monkpeabody · 08-27-2004, 10:50 PM

On A subject so rich ... and yeasty there will be more.

Xan · 08-28-2004, 06:20 AM

Excellent!