Forget-Me-Knot #001: The ‘Tap Marmite White’ conundrum

Forget-Me-Knots – those reminders you stick on your phone and then forget about, until much later…

Months back – August it was – I was visiting my friend Lucrezia and her chum in London, and after perhaps a bit too much booze, the subject of Marmite somehow came up.

Lucrezia’s mucker – let’s call him Ignatius – swore blind that there’s something in the chemical composition of that yeast spread friend of vegans everywhere which means if you agitate it enough, it turns from its familiar dark brown/black colour to white. I’m a little hazy on the details, but it all sounded jolly plausible the way he explained it at the time (and believe me, he explained it at length).

“If you get a spoonful of it, and shake it really vigorously for a few minutes, it really does work,” he assured me.

Libations aside, I was fairly sceptical, but there was no Marmite in the house, it was too late to go on a mission to find a shop that might sell it, so naturally I stuck a reminder in my phone so I could check for myself when I got home.

Well, needless to say, I completely forgot. Until November.

I went down The Farm to meet my flatmate and see a few friends, and somehow I got to flicking through the reminders on my phone. I spotted the Marmite one mentioned it out loud, as you do. Scorn was heaped on me for even considering that it might be true. But still, lingering thoughts… ‘What if it is true?’

The next thing I knew the bloke who’d been sitting behind us appeared from the bar, and thrust a big jar of the black stuff and a spoon into my hands.

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

Well, when an invitation like that comes around, you don’t hang about, do you? It would have been churlish not to get shaking. So shake I did. For rather a long time. A long, long time.

Ignatius, you bastard 😡

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