Brickbat: He Just Smiled and Gave Me a Vegemite Sandwich

Australian Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion calls Vegemite, a food spread made from brewer's yeast that is popular down under, a "precursor to misery" that should perhaps be restricted. Scullion said that in indigenous communities where alcohol sales are banned because of widespread abuse, people are buying Vegemite in bulk to make moonshine liquor and beer. Scullion said those communities should consider banning Vegemite as well. As we all know, there's no other way the people there will be able to obtain brewer's yeast if the local stores won't sell it.

Note: This story is from 2015 but had recently made rounds on social media.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Can't you hear that thunder? It's colonial paternalism.

[SQRLSY One]

The philosophy and theology of the Aussie Government Almighty teaches that It MUST micro-manage all of the affairs of the wee ones! Especially at times like these, one must remember that philosophy is useless; theology is worse! Else you can get yourself into some dire straits!

[mad.casual]

Australian Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion

A slack jaw with not much to say.

[Inigo Montoya]

Yeah, he's got to go. They should replace him with someone who is 6-foot-four and full of muscle.

[mad.casual]

It's really funny to think about how Australia has utterly wussified in a generation (or less) and that, if you didn't fully grasp both the idioms and the zeitgeist of the song, it would be painfully obvious (like worse than Frankie Goes To Hollywood) that the song is a story of an Australian detailing a series of bisexual encounters.

To the point that even now I wonder if I was just a kid naively listening to it through the lens of Crocodile Dundee movies.

[The Encogitationer]

Instead of "Making Plans For Nigel," it looks like Nigel is making plans for everybody else.

XTC--Making Plans For Nigel
https://youtu.be/0U-q1gArgbM

[The Encogitationer]

Yep, the old "White Man's Burden" assumption that indigenous peoples can't hold their liquor.

Maybe alcoholism and drug addiction wouldn't be a problem with indigenois peoples if they weren't forced off their land, forced into Reservations and Residential Schools, and forced into Christianity and alien languages and cultures. Just sayin'.

Besides, from what I've heard, even from Americans who loved their trip to Australia, Vegemite is nasty to eat and probably only good for moonshining and homebrewing.

[Jimbo BTR]

Alcoholism isn't as much a problem as the domestic violence, rape and murder that flows from it. "Holding one's liquor" is a matter of "personal responsibility" but, that concept is alien to modern leftist ideology so no one talks about it.

[Kreel Sarloo]

A big problem in these communities that virtually no one wants to talk about is the amount of child rape.

The fact that it happens because it is part of their culture, along with violent extralegal punishment for all wrongs, does not fit the left's vision of the "noble savage."

[Adans smith]

They should just lock down all the indigenous people in the new Aussie tradition.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Don't you even anti-racism? The proper solution is to lock down all the (white) people who refuse to go along with a nation-wide ban on Vegemite.

[The Encogitationer]

Don't either of you libertarian, Brahs? Nobody lock down anybody who's peaceful and honest.

Vegemite might be nasty, but there's no evidence of it being inherently coercive.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Do you whoosh, brah?

[The Encogitationer]

It just sounded cognitively dissonant-y coming from a name like Adam Smith.

[m4019597]

If the problem is in a few isolated communities, educate them.

Just don’t call them indigenous, because they weren’t the first hominids or the first culture to exist there.

[flag58]

Citations?

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-15/research-shows-ancient-indian-migration-to-australia/4466382

Not sure this is what M is referencing, but enjoy.

[The Encogitationer]

It says Aborigines were on the Continent of Australia for 40,000 yers (though Wikipedia claims over 50,000 years,) and that Indians came over 4000 years ago and evidently brought micro stone tools and the dingo. Fascinating, but where it ties in, I don't know.

So, yeah, I don't know what M is talking about either, Perhaps M should stick with talking about his Greatest Hits Boxed Set:

M*Pop Musik
https://youtu.be/W9qU1Y0WAbg

[m4019597]

Use your eyes.

The currently recognized aboriginals have 2.5% Neanderthal DNA and have maternal genetics that can be traced 50000 years to a population that migrated out of Africa, then got sealed in as sea levels rose a few hundred years afterward.

These are the direct descendants of Africans, yet have few of the same physical features.

It is therefore obvious that they merged with a population that already existed in Australia.

[Jimbo BTR]

The problem in isolated communities is the isolation. Out in the middle of nowhere, there are few jobs and there is little to do. Getting shit-faced is pretty much the only form of entertainment. Education is pointless. You can lead someone to sobriety but you can't make them stay if they don't want to be there .

Pretty much the only solution is to remove all contact with the modern world and let them re-learn the old ways or die out. Any carbohydrate can be turned into booze and yeasts exist naturally in the air. The evidence for this is my pineapple juice unintentionally fermenting in my fridge recently.

[Brandybuck]

I made some awesome pomegranate wine once. Accidentally, but it was still awesome. The yeast is everywhere. The trick is getting the good yeast and blocking the bad yeast. Otherwise you get nasty pruno, or trendy as shit Belgium swill.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Look, if some non-white, non-western group makes claims on land based on a literal reading of their creation myth, BELIEVE THEM!

"Scientific skepticism" of religion only applies to christianity.

[Bloodaxe]

The article is from 2015, what a long time to wait for a Brickbat!

[Think It Through]

That is crazy. A few things have happened worth commenting on, since 2015, even down under.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I tried vegemite once, when I was in Australia in 1982. Gahh! Nasty!

It only seems fair to let people turn it into something palatable.

[The Encogitationer]

What'd I tell ya above, folks? What'd I tell ya?

[Agammamon]

I guess you just don't enjoy every sandwich.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Now we know where Foster's comes from!

[Isaac Bartram]

Interestingly, Vegemite is made from the waste leftover from the brewing process. It was originally sourced from Carlton & United Breweries which includes Fosters in its stable of brands.

Vegemite is banned from Victorian prisons, with the bans beginning to come into effect from the 1990s, to prevent inmates from brewing alcohol using the paste's high yeast content, despite the fact that Vegemite contains no live yeast.[63] Similar bans were proposed in 2015 for a number of dry communities in outback Australia,[64] but were not enacted.

[Isaac Bartram]

So, in a way it can be said that Vegemite comes from Fosters.

[Isaac Bartram]

Incidentally waste yeast for Marmite is Bass Breweries.

[Isaac Bartram]

...comes from Bass Breweries.

[The Encogitationer]

Foster's "oil cans" aren't bad. Foster's was certainly better than Millwaukee's Beast back in my college drinking days. But eating Vegemite afterwards would be an entire pack of dogs versus just "the hair of the dog."

[Brandybuck]

Watched someone make a vegemite sammich. Take just a tiny bit. Like on the tip of your butter knife. Even that might be too much. Then spread it over a slice of white bread as thinly as you can. Enough to see color, not so much that you can't see the bread. Then hide it with another slice of bread.

Still too strong for most mortals. Then aussies must be a different species.

The brits have essentially the same thing, called "Marmite". They love it on pancakes. Ugh, I'm feeling ill.

Meanwhile they look at us Yankees in horror because we love peanut butter.

[The Encogitationer]

The tiny portions supposedly came from rationing during "The Great War" World War I, although the nasty taste would be good enough reason too.

[Jimbo BTR]

That's how we make it for children. Adults frequently slather it on (it depends on how much is left in the jar). The one thing we don't do, unlike Americans, is expect it to taste like chocolate.

It's not a sweet taste; it's savoury. As adults, we enjoy savoury flavours (again, unlike Americans).

[Cyto]

Rabbit Proof Fence is a great movie about Australia's paternalism towards indigenous peoples. Also a fantastic story of the triumph of the human spirit.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252444/

[Isaac Bartram]

The implication in "Rabbit Proof Fence " is that awful conservatives were the people behind the "assimilation" policy, but it was actually very much a Progressive policy similar to the US and Canadian policies of "kill the Indian to save the man" that led to the residential school programs in both countries. All of these programs survived in one form or another until the 1970s.

The conservative grazing and business interests weren't so much concerned with the welfare of the indigenous people they pretty much just saw them as a source of cheap labor and just gave them jobs.

[The Encogitationer]

Shhhh!...You'll trigger Mother's Lament! He thinks the deaths and abuse in Canadian Residential Schools never happened!

[Hattori Hanzo]

Vegemite. Not good.

[The Encogitationer]

Another living testimonial!

[Azathoth!!]

Just buy Marmite instead. It tastes better.

[The Encogitationer]

Judging from the description on the Wiki page, and the marketing slogan: "Love It Or Hate It!", I don't think that would be good by itself either. Perhaps in the recipes, though.

Marmite--Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite

[Eeyore]

I think it is an urban myth that you can make alcohol from vegimite.

[Isaac Bartram]

Probably so, since it contains no live yeast. Nevertheless, it is banned from Victorian prisons since officials believe that inmates might brew some kind of moonshine from it. It is worth noting that Victoria is also home to the first mandatory seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws in the world.

[Brandybuck]

Huh? Wat?

I tiniest bit of a tiny swab of brewers yeast can be cultivated for a lifetime. You don't need jars and jars of vegemite to brew beer. Hell, you can start your own culture from just about any unfiltered beer that has a yeast layer on on the bottom. I started one from a bottle of Sierra Nevada.

Sugar, water, cool temperature, and swab of yeast, and you're in business.

This Scallion guy is a tool.

[Isaac Bartram]

We're talking about remote rural communities in Northern Australia here, not the USA or inner-city* Sydney or Melbourne. You can't buy unfiltered beer there. You're lucky to get commercial brews like Fosters or Toohey's there since many of them are dry towns due to the paternalistic officials who are protecting the locals from demon alcohol. In these areas an inordinate amount of police time is spent on shutting down "sly grog shops"; ie Bootleggers. That's why the locals are making their own in the first place.

*Whereas, inner-city in the USA connotes poverty and high crime ghettoes, in Oz it refers to central city enclave of rich white "progressives" who vote Labor or Green and get all their news from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the Oz equivalent of NPR and PBS, with a lot of CNN and MSNBC thrown in.

[The Encogitationer]

I bet the Aussie ABC interviewers say: "Hmm!...Hmm!...Hmm!...Mate!"

[The Encogitationer]

I once made wine out of Welch's Grape Juice Concentrate, some extra sugar, and a culture of Fleischmann's Brewer's Yeast, the rest of which I used for sourdough bread. The wine was extremely sweet and could have fermented a few more months, but definitely had that alcoholic "bite."

Both yeast cultures and yoghurt cultures have been passed on for generations in families, like heirlooms. As long as they are kept cool, moist, and occasionally fed, they can go on indefinitely.

[Isaac Bartram]

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but this post was made on Australia Day (Jan 26, which due to time zones was actually yesterday in Oz), the date in 1788 on which Captain Arthur Phillip, R.N, along with officers, sailors, marines, convicts, civil servants and private passengers arrived in Port Jackson, NSW on The First Fleet. On that day Captain Phillip went ashore with some sailors and marines and raised the Union Jack and claimed the colony for King George III of Great Britain.

The day is now celebrated as Australia Day (in much the same way that we celebrate July 4) though various activists choose to spoil the fun and protest it as "Survival Day" or "Invasion Day."

[Isaac Bartram]

OT: I just learned today that six months after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour two convicts successfully sued the captain of the ship they arrived on for lost luggage.

This is probably why today New South Wales is the second most litigious legal jurisdiction in the world. 🙂

[Isaac Bartram]

After California.

[Tyval Dayall]

I tried vegemite in 2004 while in New Zealand. I still can't get the awful taste out of my mouth.