Ruddymite, Wow Chow and 2ritemite were some of the 48,000 suggestions for a new version of Australian VEGEMITE before Kraft Foods settled on the less than mouth-watering name iSnack.2.0.
Like most (all) Australians, I went onto Vegemite as soon as I came off the breast.
We ate it on toast for breakfast. Vegemite sandwiches were taken to school. Either neat or with slices of cheese. And `Fairy Fingers`-Vegemite on thinly sliced white bread - were served at children`s birthday parties.
It is understood that the new hybrid VEG is mixed with cream cheese to make it spread more easily, but as far as I`m concerned, it was always easy to spread. And it was one of the first items I threw in when packing for a trip. As important as my toothbrush. Or my typewriter.
Vegemite was impossible to find in London when I arrived in the sixties along with Germaine Greer, Clive James, Richard Neville & Co. We had to depend on friends bringing it over by sea when it was valued no less than the recent Roman hoard found in Shrewsbury.
I would decanter it into something small to ensure I had it for breakfast wherever I happened to be. And if it was to be a long research trip, I took an entire jar with me.
Racing to catch a flight in Kenya on one occasion, I left the precious black spread in a taxi and have wondered since what the driver made of it. (Did he taste it, or grease the axles with it?)
Sainsbury`s , the mega UK supermarket chain now stocks Vegemite so expats no longer feel deprived, although I recently had to take a jar out to a friend in Zanzibar.
I wait patiently to try iSnack 2.0 which is being marketed with such hype you`d think it was a newly discovered species of Australian marsupial.
Dean Robbins, a 27 year old web designer from Perth who chose the new product name is quoted as saying: `To think I will go down in history is overwhelming.`
C.Christine Osborne
Image: www.copix.co.uk
