SC - Vegemite, instant trifle & birthdays

[Jeanne Stapleton]

    Re: SC - Disgusting recipes
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, apologies to any Aussies who love vegemite...I actually have eaten
vegemite, I lost a bet with Elffin while drunk on madeira and he made
me a vegemite sandwich: toasted roll, lots of butter, thin spread of
vegemite.  I survived it.

Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 19:14:49 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at spambegone.asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Disgusting recipes

Jeanne Stapleton wrote:

> I've been intermittently cruising the web looking at other
> historical food sites in my research process--I'm not only
> interested in medieval/Renaissance food--and I found two things this
> afternoon I just had to mention:
> 
>         Vegemite Quiche (taken from the back of an Australia jar
>                                 of vegemite, submitted by an En
>                                 Zedder)

>Does that strike you as substantially worse than all the things that
>Americans put Lipton's Onion Soup mix in? 

I strongly suspect i haven't *seen* everything Lipton's Onion Soup mix
goes in, but thanks for giving me another research vector. :-) I use
it in meatloaf and chip dip, and that's it.  I actually have a couple
of Australian cookbooks and there are soup and stew recipes that
recommend a couple of tablespoonfuls of vegemite; it works fine.

But Vegemite Quiche...especially when I tell you the cheese is Kraft
Processed Cheddar..

BTW, does anyone want to see the recipe?  Happy to post it.

>Of course, I wouldn't call the dish Potage a la
>Knorr-Swiss, since I don't expect the entire character of my dish to
>rely on the more peculiar ingredients.

True, but vegemite itself is not a brand name.-Kraft is a big one Down
Under. I once bounced over to Baroness Viviana's breakfast sideboard
and noticed three squeezy bears: one honey, one peanut butter and one
i thought was chocolate spread.  It wasn't.  It was vegemite.


>         Swabian Liver Dumplings (which are, according to the
>                                         submitter, period, although
>                                         he didn't have any kind of
>                                         cite to mail me)

>They probably are period, actually. It would just be difficult to say
>how much their period ancestors resemble the modern article, and I
>would therefore be inclined to lean away from using a modern recipe
>for them, for our purposes.

As would I.  

> I suppose if one liked liver (which I don't, unless it's in the form
> of pate) the second could be quite good if done properly.  I,
> however, don't like liver.
> 
> Has anyone else run across something that just sounded unbelievable
> when cruising through food sources?

>How about canned steak-and-kidney pie? Kinda like chunky dog food
>under this layered amalgam of library paste and car wax, which
>theoretically turns into puff pastry when you bake it. In practice,
>it doesn't.

Ewww...where did you find that?

>Oh. I also once ate instant trifle, for fear of insulting my host. It
>appeared to be a dried, compressed, rectangle of sponge cake, just
>like the flattened sponges you buy in the hardware store. Just add
>water and POOF! You then smear it with this sort of jammy goo from a
>plastic packet, and over that goes the Bird's Instant Custard Mix.

That doesnot sound pleasant.  But then I love making trifle from
scratch.


>I'm not sure if this answers your question in any other than a
>spiritual way: I don't think there are too many Web pages devoted to
>such stuff. UseNet news, on the other hand...;  )

Since I'm not looking for definitive answers to my questions, but
lively discussion and sharing, I think it answers it just fine. 
There's no Web page called "Cultural Cuisine Oddities" or "disgusting
recipes", but as I said, I found these when I searched web browsers
for "quiche", "dumplings," et al.


>There wasn't anyone eating while reading this, was there? If so, I
>apologize, as long as what you were trying to eat wasn't instant
>trifle, of course, in which case you deserve whatever happens.

No, but I did go home and tell my housemates about it over dinner. 
They freaked.  Genevieve thought for a second I actually wanted to
serve the liver dumplings weekend after next.


Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 11:25:29 +1100 (EST)
From: Charles McCathieNevile <charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au>
Subject: Re: SC - Disgusting recipes

On Wed, 10 Dec 1997, Jeanne Stapleton wrote:
[snip]
> I just had to mention:
> 
> 	Vegemite Quiche (taken from the back of an Australia jar
> 				of vegemite, submitted by an En Zedder)
Vegemite quiche (like vegemite and avocado toast, and lots of other
stuff with vegemite) is actually good.

>For those who are unsure, vegemite is made by taking the yeast
>deposit left after brewing beer. Add a lot of salt, a few other
>things, and you have a black substance that looks a bit like tar.
>(But then my mother ate tar Ice-cream in Helsinki last month. And I
>know of somebody called Cariadoc, who is a respectable person with a
>proper job. It does take all sorts)

Japan has blue cheese ice cream and poppy seed ice cream.  I quite
like green tea ice cream.

>I heard of an australian who went to Czechoslovakia in the early
>eighties. He took, as Australians do, a survival jar of Vegemite
>(About a pint). 

All of my Aussie houseguests packed their own.

>It should be noted that while some of us eat vegemite spread like
>cheese on a pizza, most eat it spread VERY thin - the amount that
>would sit on my (large) thumbnail is plenty for the average vegemite
>sandwich.

That is the trick, I guess: it's not like peanut butter.

Speaking of Australian pizzas...the fried egg baked in the middle was
a trifle tough to get used to...

[Cute story about customs and eating vegemite with a spoon from the
jar]


And before I forget...we don't generally do birthdays much on this
list, but I'd like to mention that two subscribers had birthdays
within the past couple of days:

Baroness Morgana yr Oerfa	on Dec. 9
Viscountess Annora de Montfort of Shadowood 	on Dec. 10

Happy birthday, ladies!!!



jstaplet at adm.law.du.edu
University of Denver
College of Law
Ext. 6288
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