[Leica] OT: Vegemite, an Australian practical joke

[langeratcarleton at gmail.com (Mark Langer)]

When I was a student in New York, my then partner worked at the Canadian
Consulate.  Some of the employees were Australian, and great was the
excitement among them when vats of Vegemite would arrive in the post from
the mother country.  They consumed them on Triscuit (washed down with cans
of Fosters), and offered me a taste.  It was appalling -- combining the
worst points of the sticky part of hockey tape and sweat socks stored in the
bottom of a gym bag in a high school locker.  Years laterhen staying at a
hotel in Australia, I was distressed not only to see this stuff in little
plastic jam containers at every table, but to observe Australians swabbing
it on toast and eating it before the sun was over the yardarm.  Really put
me off my food.

On the other hand, coming from a country whose major culinary traditions are
the hot beef sandwich and the poutine (gravy is the Canadian national
beverage), who am I to point the finger at Australians?

Mark