It’s time for a classic Wojo’s World. Enjoy this popular column from a couple of years ago.
I learned a lot from the pop music of the 1980s.
You can wear your sunglasses at night. (I actually tried this in 7th or 8th grade when the song was out, and in retrospect, not only did I look like a goof, but it also made it really hard to see. But, I digress…)
You can dance if you want to. You can leave your friends behind. That didn’t seem nice, though, because if you’re dancing, you usually want your friends around, right?
Unless you’re in a really bad music video where everyone is headed to the Renaissance Faire. Then, I’m guessing, you probably want them as far away from you as possible.
I also learned about Australia from the band Men at Work. The amazing information that I gleaned from this fun bunch of guys?
That Australia is called “Down Under.” (Yeah, sure, now everyone knows this, but back then we were young and naïve and hooked on MTV.)
It’s also referred to—at least in the song—as the “land of plenty.”
Sound like a great place to go, right?
Well, then, there’s also Vegemite.
In the song, singer Colin Hay says that a man smiled and gave him a Vegemite sandwich.
All our teenage selves could think was “What in the world is Vegemite?”
Back then (she says in her 700-year-old lady voice), we didn’t have no fancy interwebs to discover this info. We didn’t have phones to pull out of our pockets and do the Google. We had to walk to the brick-and-mortar building called the library.
Since the song was released in the United States during the summer of 1982, my friends and I had better things to do. Like walk around the neighborhood for hours at a time. Sit on the marble steps and talk. Or go to the local Polack Johnny’s and play video games.
Researching what exactly Vegemite was wasn’t exactly on the top of our To-Do Lists.
Flash forward a mere 32 years.
Let me pause for a minute, as realizing that 32 years have passed since I was singing that song with my friends has rendered me a bit dizzy…
Whew…okay, I’m back now.
Before heading to the 2014 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ annual conference, where I was a speaker, I had a visit from a friend and colleague who just happens to live Down Under.
We asked her things that only goofy Americans would:
Do dingoes really eat babies?
After making her listen to the Outback Steakhouse commercials online, we asked, Does that voice really sound Australian? (Her verdict: No. If anything, she said, it sounds a bit like a New Zealander and a not-great accent at that.)
And what on earth is Vegemite?
“I’ve got some with me? Would you like to try it?”
Oh my gosh! If I had a bucket list—which I don’t because I think that the term “bucket list” is stupid and always makes me think that once you start checking stuff off it, the closer to death you get—I would have this on it: Try Vegemite.
“Absolutely!” I said. Then added, “Um, but what’s in it?”
As she began reading off the label, what surprised me the most was that none of the ingredients were, um, vegetables.
“Yeast extract,” she began as she read the side of the little bottle.
Okay. Now I had another question. “What in the heck is yeast extract?”
This I had to Google. According to YeastExtract.Info, (I’m totally serious about this website.) “Yeast extract is a versatile ingredient that is used in various foodstuffs including soups, sauces, and ready meals. It is made from the same fresh yeast that is used in bread, beer, and wine production.”
Well, that didn’t sound so bad. Until a friend said it sounded like the remains that they scrape off the bottom of the machine when they’re brewing beer.
Bleah…
Vegemite actually has a high amount of vitamin B in it. My friend eats vegemite on toast with butter.
The time had come. I took a bite.
It was said to be savory. It was said to be tasty.
I thought it tasted like a smoky salt-lick and promptly spit it out.
Everyone else who tried it seemed to think it wasn’t bad. They wouldn’t eat it often, but thought it wasn’t too bad.
All I kept thinking was, “People eat sandwiches of this stuff?”
I remembered, though, that during an interview, singer Colin Hay once said, “It’s an acquired taste.”
And acquiring it is definitely not on my non-existent bucket list.
Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s coming close to insulting an entire country by spitting out one of their most favorite foods, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore.
She’s also the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.
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