So, into the world comes a new Marmite book filled full of Marmite information, from serious to silly and everything in between, illustrated with fun cartoon sketches.
The Mish-mash Dictionary of Marmite cover the beginnings of Marmite as brewing industry yeast-waste, to its use in the finest restaurants and the grip that Marmite has on the palates and minds around the world.
The book is almost a social history, covering more than 100 years of the life of Marmite. The Mish-mash Dictionary covers Marmites place in medicine, its role in education, wars, its many unlikely uses (apart from eating it), and more.
I have to say that during the research for this book I was in contact with Maggie Hall, the author (who was New York correspondent for the Daily Mirror, then a freelancer in Washington DC), and she was absolutely lovely and genuinely interested in our favourite spread. However, due to a spell-checking error, I am in the book as Sean Waldron and not Seamus Waldron :-) I cannot repeat the reply from Maggie when I pointed this out!
This is what the book has to say about Maggie:
MAGGIE HALL has always fallen into the
'love Marmite' category. But until she spied
one of the first silver lids many years ago she
had no clue as to the huge hold the black goo
has on the nation. Her immediate thought
was: What's going on here? Now having put
this A-Z together she knows that it's a bizarre,
serious, zany, wholesome, off-the-wall, carryon.
As a retired Fleet Street reporter â who
started life in Cleckheaton, Yorkshire and now
divides her time between Washington DC,
Whitby in Yorkshire and travelling â none of
what she discovered on this voyage around
the world of Marmite should have surprised
her. But it did!
And this is what the book says about me:
Waldron: Sean Waldron (which of course should be Seamus Waldron :-)is, without a doubt,
the Marmite website-meister. He's the founder
and keeper of: www.ilovemarmite.com and
www.ihatemarmite.com. The story of how he
became involved is a good example of how, if
you see a chance, grab it.
In 2000 Sean (that would be Seamus) was
working in IT research and development in
the States. Occasionally he would be asked by
American friends and colleagues about
Marmite which was, and still is, perceived as a
peculiarly British product. He would refer
them to the Marmite website â under the
mistaken perception that there was one. He
checked and found little if anything. 'I found
one page,' he told me. 'And that was asking
whether fans of Marmite would like a website!'
In disbelief that there was nothing more
substantial on the internet he searched
further. 'I tried "I love Marmite" and found
nothing. I tried "I hate Marmite" and also
found nothing. Five minutes later I was the
proud owner of both domains.'
Sean (seamus;-), who is now back in Britain, chuckled at
what has happened since: 'I do like Marmite,
but would never have said I was an expert,
although I've turned into a bit of one now.'
You can say that again! He has been
interviewed about his site and his knowledge
of Marmite by media outlets all over the world
and many of those articles and broadcasts
have been syndicated. 'As a result I have
received messages from the most unlikely
places, where people have read about me, or
heard me interviewed,' he said.
The chances are that you might also hear
about Sean (Seamus) because of his non-Marmite life.
He is an amazingly talented jiver and jive
teacher. He was introduced to the revival of
the dance, which was the ballroom craze of
the 50s and 60s, while living in Boston,
Massachusetts.
He now owns three modern jive
dance schools in London and
Buckinghamshire. Surprisingly he's not come
up yet with a dance called The Marmiteâ¦
The Mish-mash Dictionary of Marmite: An Anecdotal A-Z of 'Tar-in-a-Jar'
can be purchased from Amazon.
