ChatterBank0 min ago
FAO Clanad
21 Answers
Hi, I've jsut noticed you are around. Did you buy the marmite and what did you think of it?
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Ummm... How do I express this carefully , so as to not further damage British/American relations?
So, I toasted two slices of Mrs. C's freshly baked sourdough bread made from a starter that's over 50 years old handed down from her Grandmother. The fragrance of the extra sour bread wafted through the early morning sunlight filtering into the kitchen here in the western U.S.
Sat myself down with a steaming cup of Kenya roast coffee brewed from freshly ground beans and spring water drawn from our own spring house... one glurg of fresh cream, two spoons sugar. Buttered aforesaid toast lightly (unsalted sweet cream), opened the smallish jar of Marmite recently immigrated to our rural county all the way from "...That green and pleasant land..."
Cautiously approaching it's somehow sinister, shiny, dark brown, to that point, unsullied surface, I gently dipped the point of the knife no more than 1/8th of an inch into the fuliginoussubstance. Suspecting, as some of this thread's contributors had suggested, that only a soup�on would suffice, I spread it thinly and evenly on the still warm, aromatic, butter-dripping surface. So far... so good.
Maybe the sourdough aroma that permeated the warm kitchen (the western window of which, looks out on the 13,500 foot Cloud's Peak) covered any rebarbative scent of the glutinous, semi-congealed, oleaginous substance now decorating the lightly browned toast's surface.
Contd.
So, I toasted two slices of Mrs. C's freshly baked sourdough bread made from a starter that's over 50 years old handed down from her Grandmother. The fragrance of the extra sour bread wafted through the early morning sunlight filtering into the kitchen here in the western U.S.
Sat myself down with a steaming cup of Kenya roast coffee brewed from freshly ground beans and spring water drawn from our own spring house... one glurg of fresh cream, two spoons sugar. Buttered aforesaid toast lightly (unsalted sweet cream), opened the smallish jar of Marmite recently immigrated to our rural county all the way from "...That green and pleasant land..."
Cautiously approaching it's somehow sinister, shiny, dark brown, to that point, unsullied surface, I gently dipped the point of the knife no more than 1/8th of an inch into the fuliginoussubstance. Suspecting, as some of this thread's contributors had suggested, that only a soup�on would suffice, I spread it thinly and evenly on the still warm, aromatic, butter-dripping surface. So far... so good.
Maybe the sourdough aroma that permeated the warm kitchen (the western window of which, looks out on the 13,500 foot Cloud's Peak) covered any rebarbative scent of the glutinous, semi-congealed, oleaginous substance now decorating the lightly browned toast's surface.
Contd.
<I?Contd.
That was the first mistake... I should have been forewarned by some harbinger of what was to come... some wafting or emittance crying a tocsinic "Prepare for Doom!" But... noooo... I continued to edge it closer to my mouth unforewarned. Just as I began to taste something entirely foreign (pun partially inteneded) I recalled, alas! to late, an article read some days beforehand while researching the pros and cons of Marmite, "... Marmite is a brownish vegetable extract with a toxic odor, saline taste and an axle grease consistency that has somehow captivated the British..." and continued, "...That no foreigner has ever been known to like it simply adds to its domestic allure and its iconic status as an emblem of enduring British insularity and bloody-mindedness..." and proceeded further "...Hayley Feureisen, the Welsh-born manager of Myers of Keswick, a grocery in Lower Mannattan (New York) that caters to expatriate Britons, said that Marmite was the product that her customers requested most. As for Americans, she said, "they think it tastes like a cross between cheese and shoe polish."
That statement does a terrible disservice to shoe polish.
It was foul, it was overwhelming, it was akin to being conned into eating Lutefisk by previously trusted Norwegian-descended neighbors last Christmas.
Mrs. C. was standing nearby witnessing the Technicolor changes taking place on my face, asked in that demure fashion only she can muster when the world's going to hell in a hand-basket all around, "...Something wrong?"
Contd.
That was the first mistake... I should have been forewarned by some harbinger of what was to come... some wafting or emittance crying a tocsinic "Prepare for Doom!" But... noooo... I continued to edge it closer to my mouth unforewarned. Just as I began to taste something entirely foreign (pun partially inteneded) I recalled, alas! to late, an article read some days beforehand while researching the pros and cons of Marmite, "... Marmite is a brownish vegetable extract with a toxic odor, saline taste and an axle grease consistency that has somehow captivated the British..." and continued, "...That no foreigner has ever been known to like it simply adds to its domestic allure and its iconic status as an emblem of enduring British insularity and bloody-mindedness..." and proceeded further "...Hayley Feureisen, the Welsh-born manager of Myers of Keswick, a grocery in Lower Mannattan (New York) that caters to expatriate Britons, said that Marmite was the product that her customers requested most. As for Americans, she said, "they think it tastes like a cross between cheese and shoe polish."
That statement does a terrible disservice to shoe polish.
It was foul, it was overwhelming, it was akin to being conned into eating Lutefisk by previously trusted Norwegian-descended neighbors last Christmas.
Mrs. C. was standing nearby witnessing the Technicolor changes taking place on my face, asked in that demure fashion only she can muster when the world's going to hell in a hand-basket all around, "...Something wrong?"
Contd.
Contd.
Rushing headlong to the wastebasket, I stepped on the foot lever and spit the mess into it... only to have it spit it back out!
Thinking I had obviously terribly offended several people on The AnswerBank over the years I began enumerating the list of possibilites of who could possibly dislike a representative set of pixels so vehemently that they could recommend something that produces so vivid a near death experience as Marmite on toast.
I will do penance and make amends, if only to discover how I've offended the contibutors who have sought my destruction!
One last quote from here ... a television ad exploiting the product's notoriety for producing bad breath, showed a woman excusing herself from a sofa clutch with her boyfriend and running into the kitchen to have a quick bite of Marmite. She returns, they kiss, and the final scene shows the woman alone while the man is heard throwing up in the toilet."
Understandable... completely... (Said in good humor but all seriousness).
Fini
Rushing headlong to the wastebasket, I stepped on the foot lever and spit the mess into it... only to have it spit it back out!
Thinking I had obviously terribly offended several people on The AnswerBank over the years I began enumerating the list of possibilites of who could possibly dislike a representative set of pixels so vehemently that they could recommend something that produces so vivid a near death experience as Marmite on toast.
I will do penance and make amends, if only to discover how I've offended the contibutors who have sought my destruction!
One last quote from here ... a television ad exploiting the product's notoriety for producing bad breath, showed a woman excusing herself from a sofa clutch with her boyfriend and running into the kitchen to have a quick bite of Marmite. She returns, they kiss, and the final scene shows the woman alone while the man is heard throwing up in the toilet."
Understandable... completely... (Said in good humor but all seriousness).
Fini
I must be the only..errmmm...middle-of-the-road -yank on this site. Living in the UK,for more than 19 years,it was ineveitable that marmite would find its way into my kitchen. And,may I say,NOT due to the influence of the Brit husband.
Rather-it was my then 10-12 year old daughter who developed a fanatical desire for the stuff.
My reaction to it has definitely been one of sitting in the fence. I would eat it if I was desperate....but I have never craved it. I hope the experiance quickly becomes a distant memory,Clanad.
I am wondering if sourdough bread was not the ideal accompianment. Maybe a bog-standard white would have been better.
Rather-it was my then 10-12 year old daughter who developed a fanatical desire for the stuff.
My reaction to it has definitely been one of sitting in the fence. I would eat it if I was desperate....but I have never craved it. I hope the experiance quickly becomes a distant memory,Clanad.
I am wondering if sourdough bread was not the ideal accompianment. Maybe a bog-standard white would have been better.
Oh dear, oh dear! Come on, C, I always thought you Americans were noted for your sticktoitiveness...you can't give up after only one attempt.
Think of other foodstuffs, drinks etc that you detested on first tasting. I myself can remember, as a teenager, thinking how dreadful beer tasted, but by now I have been an aficionado for over half a century...it's wonderful!
Hang in there!
Think of other foodstuffs, drinks etc that you detested on first tasting. I myself can remember, as a teenager, thinking how dreadful beer tasted, but by now I have been an aficionado for over half a century...it's wonderful!
Hang in there!
Well put Q... however there's more than a fine line between "sticktotitveness" and sheer lunacy, no? This is something one's mother warns one about... you know, loose women, failing to brush ones teeth, wearing clean underwear in case of an accident, andnow Marmite It's sure to be listed somewhere as a health hazard. It was interesting to recall the scenes of my life that passed before my eyes, however.
Tried to give the dog a lick (the one from the barn that will eat anything)... hasn't looked or spoken to me since!
Tried to give the dog a lick (the one from the barn that will eat anything)... hasn't looked or spoken to me since!
