Dash # 783 Strange Food

Question:  What’s the Strangest Thing You’ve Ever Tasted?

       When I was on my mission I remember two individuals believing they could outdo each other by eating the grossest thing they could come up with.  Raw egg, entire raw onion, etc.

       I can’t remember which one of them succeeded at the onion, but his breath could be detected from across the room.  I remember when he said his good-byes that his breath made a little girl cry.

        My companion had suggested to the two of them that there was still yet another test.  Her trainer’s boyfriend had been serving a mission in Australia and had sent her a package for Christmas that included goods native to Australia.  Among those “treasures” was a small jar of something called Vegemite – which evidently is used as a spread similar to how American’s used peanut butter.  She said that she and her companion had tasted it but that is was the foulest thing that she had ever put in her mouth.  

             Without knowing anything more about it, both guys who had attempted the onion said they would be able to eat the vegemite. One had even boasted that he would eat an entire vegemite sandwich.  

Thus when we returned to our living quarters, my companion put in a phone call to her former area and asked the missionaries to forward the vegemite to our address in Ripplemead.  It arrived within a week.

The smell was horrid.  I took a very small taste just so I can say that I have truly tasted it.  Somehow that teeny taste made the entire jar smell even more pungent.  It was gross.  I did not care for it.  Neither did any other American taste bud that we had tried it on.

The one who boasted he could eat an entire sandwich said he would rather drink motor oil and did not attempt the sandwich.  Thus the bishop of that area took the sandwich and said he could eat it – which he did.  It took him an entire hour as he made certain that the only taste on his tongue was from the bread itself.

Vegemite turned out to be a really great “gag” as we had used it to play jokes on first an elder in the zone.  We had frosted several brownies with real frosting but had set two aside to cover in vegemite.  All the other elders were enjoying their brownies and he hated the very idea of forcing his brownie to go down but did not want to appear as being rude by not finishing, but laughter got the better of us.  He looked around at each of us and then at the brownies before saying, “it’s just mine, isn’t it?”

Another was when the bishop removed the cream filling from the centers of Oreo type cookies and replaced them with vegemite in order to catch a cookie thief at work.  He said that somebody had been raiding the lunch bags and stealing the desserts.  

Although he had an idea of who the culprit was, he couldn’t prove it.  Thus he took his vegemite filled cookies to work to catch the guy.  He said it was the funniest thing to watch the guy swear in disbelief that there was something wrong with the cookies – only he couldn’t report it because he had been at fault for stealing them.

Years later, when I was trying to get Jenna to stop sucking her finger, I wound a store that specialized in import goods.  I learned that they carried vegemite from Australia.  They also had a marmite from New Zealand.  As it was less costly, I settled for that.  I thought that if I put something that revolting on her finger, she would stop sucking it.  I also knew that it wasn’t going to hurt her.

Marmite backfired!  She LOVED it.  She would eat it by the spoonful.  It was many years before she stopped sucking on her finger.  I don’t remember what bribe I used to get her to stop.  Perhaps she figured it out on her own as her fingers became raw.