Siobhan Duck: Yes, I’m an Aussie who’s proud to hate Vegemite

WE all have our food foibles but for some reason you’re asking for trouble if you’re an Aussie who hates Vegemite, writes Siobhan Duck.

THERE are two types of people in this country. And, no, I am not talking about gender, sexuality, race or even politics. Australia, to my mind, is divided into two camps: those who love Vegemite and the small, yet discerning group, who think it is utterly disgusting.

Clearly, I am one of the select few who turn their nose up at the stuff. I have long understood that being an unhappy little Vegemite makes me an outsider, but this week I got a real insight into just how isolating it can be to dislike the stuff. And I can thank Kylie Jenner, of all people, for this little life lesson.

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Jenner’s tweet about how she had experienced a “life-changing” moment this week in trying cereal with milk for the first time became a topic of conversation in the office. People were understandably surprised that it had taken Jenner 21-odd years to sample cereal as it was intended, with a healthy serve of dairy slurped on top.

Kylie Jenner tweeted how she had experienced a ‘life-changing’ moment this week in trying cereal with milk for the first time.

There are, of course, many reasons to criticise those Kardashians. Their desperate and unashamed pursuit of the spotlight. Their fixation with changing their faces and figures. And let’s not forget the way they share every aspect of their lives — if the price is right.

With all that in mind, Kylie’s late-in-life cereal revelation is rather less concerning.

Why? As an unashamedly fussy eater, I understand that she may have taken her time tasting the pure pleasure of icy cold milk hitting crunchy, delicious cereal.

Everyone had their own weird food peccadillos. And, for the most part — leaving aside those annoyingly outspoken vegans who roll up to barbecues empty-handed and expecting a buffet of vegies rather than sausages — unorthodox food choices have little, if any, impact on anyone around them.

Maybe I am biased. I wasn’t always a fan of cereal with milk. Like Jenner, I was once unnerved by the notion of soggy cereal. I had my Cornflakes au natural, my Weet-Bix dry and my Rice Bubbles without hearing so much as a snap, crackle or pop. But, I have adapted.

Forgive me if I walk away if you try to start a conversation with me after eating a Vegemite sandwich.

Yes, I now have (soy) milk on my cereal (provided I can eat it quickly) but I would never go near a slice of Vegemite toast. This, my colleagues tell me, makes me a “freak”.

Not in my family it doesn’t. I have a brother who is terrified of pasta. My dad will not go near the holy trinity of culinary Cs: coriander, cucumber and celery. My aunt can’t be in the same room with rice.

Me? Well, yes, I hate Vegemite. But I also abhor tinned tuna, overripe bananas, cocktail frankfurts and leftovers.

These food intolerances are accepted more readily than my stance on that salty spread because, people tell me, it is “unAustralian” to hate Vegemite. Oh how I enjoy telling those folks that I am also AFL agnostic, have never swung a bat in a game of backyard cricket and have never sampled a Four’N Twenty pie. So, if we are measuring Australian-ness by stereotypes, then the government should confiscate my passport now.

Of course, it is good to try new things and expand one’s cultural and culinary horizons.

But I am too old and set in my ways to change my tastes now. And it doesn’t affect anyone (except my offspring who I have tried, without success, to ban from eating the things that make my stomach turn) that I give most of this stuff a miss.

I have never even sampled a Four’N Twenty pie so if we are measuring Australian-ness by stereotypes, then the government should confiscate my passport now.

So forgive me if I walk away if you try to start a conversation with me after eating a Vegemite sandwich. Or, worse still, use the communal office bin to dispose of your overripe banana peel.

I won’t use the office microwave after you have heated your tuna mornay. And I have been known to throw out almost an entire slab of butter because some cretin tainted it with the scrapings of their Vegemite-smeared knife.

All this is enough to make me go bananas. But I don’t. I stay quiet, knowing I am one of the minority. Because no one loves a Vegemite-hater.

Except me.

Siobhan Duck is a Herald Sun columnist

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