Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Bye-Bye Beef Free Bovril

I grew up on Bovril, the rich bed-time treat I'd have as a youngster at my nan's. I loved the stuff and it was always a great late night drink. I don't know why, but I sort of fell out of favour with it for the best part of 20 years, until last August I got back into juiced cow. It tasted great, better than I remembered - rich and tasty and a once more a great pre-bed drink to calm the body.

I joked to Elis I was drinking juiced cow, so you could have knocked me over with a feather when I looked at the ingredients and spotted that it was suitable for vegetarians. Great, all the better because as great as it tasted, deep down to my mind there's something distinctly unsavoury about drinking cow extract on a regular basis. Then I started spotting the Beef variant of the drink - and thanks to a mix up bought one.

To be fair, it tasted OK, but wasn't nowhere as near as nice as the non-beef version. So, over the last months, I've been picking up the non-beef version at the Co-op on Fairwater Green, back in Cardiff. I was watching in dread as the supply of non-beef variant died out slowly, I knew every jar on the shelf (neatly avoiding the one out-of-date one.) Every three weeks I'd go back and buy one of the remaining ones.

I bought the last jar on the shelf just before we moved, and just this minute finished the last scoop. Having not seen a non-beef version anywhere in the shops I thought I'd take a look and see what's happening. To my horror, the non-beef version of Bovril is no more. It's beef Bovril all the way from now on. But what's annoying is they say in taste tests, no one can tell the difference. Well bah! The difference is massive. I'll miss you beef free Bovril - you've been my faithful and warming companion for half a year now. Rest well my friend - your passing has been marked and not gone unnoticed. /Dio sobs uncontrollably and considers trying Marmite as a drink instead.

However, on the late night drink front, all is not bad. I do enjoy a calming cup of St John's Wort Tea before bed as well. I could only buy it in specialist shops back in Cardiff, but remarkably, the local corner shop sells it! Pretty good showing, no fear of running out of that for now!

Posted by Dio Bach at 23:02

1 Comments:

Sebstob said...: Marmite makes a mighty fine hoecollage of a drink. Get youself some Hovis for dunkin' too.; 10:29 AM