Shit by Any Other Name...

Vegemite. Or, Vaginamite, if you will.

It's an Aussie institution, pooped out by an American-owned company. To those not familiar with this renowned product, here's Wikipedia's description:

a dark brown Australian food paste made from yeast extract. It is a spread for sandwiches, toast, crumpets and cracker biscuits, and filling for pastries such as Cheesymite scroll. It is similar to British, New Zealand, and South African Marmite and to Swiss Cenovis.

Vegemite is made from used brewers' yeast extract, a by-product of beer manufacturing, and various vegetable and spice additives. It is salty, slightly bitter, and malty — similar to beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky. It is not as intensely flavoured as British Marmite and it is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite.

I really don't get how anyone can like it. It's like a cross between battery acid and tar.

Kraft recently released a version of the toxic sludge spread with a new ingredient: cheese.

And what did they decide to call this stuff?

"Somewhat Inapplicable?", I Could Tell You That This Blog Is Esteemed.

You read correctly: i-Fucking-Snack 2.0.

What is it? A portable mp3 player? Should I stick my earphones in it and listen to JT while I'm bopping down the street with this garbage fastened to my belt?

It might not surprise you to know that the name was incredibly unpopular. In fact, the name stuck for about four days, before it was withdrawn for circulation.

There is a bit of a twist to the tale, though.

As noted in this article, there were grumblings that the crappy name had been chosen deliberately to stir up a bit of controversy and draw attention to the product.

It certainly worked a charm!

But, all's not well that ends well.

You see, they've rechristened it with a new name: Vegemite Cheesybite.

Still crap, but a bit of an improvement over the other one.

That said, the "competition" was equally dire:

"Vegemite Name Me", Vegemite.

Sheesh. That's really the best they could come up with?

How about Vegemite Thrush Scrapings, Vegemite Merde de fromage, or Vegearse?

I should point out though, that as of this writing, I haven't actually tried this new cheese-infused Vegevariant. But, I'll give it a punt.

After all, it's pretty hard to go wrong with cheese. Isn't it?