Reading the Fine Print

I love a lot of things about England. After spending three years in a schizophrenic culture I never fully understood, I find the similarities to home comforting. I know that it is a weird thing to say. I have a feeling it’s not something most American expats in London would say. They’ve never lived in Belgium.

But there are things that still baffle me about the English, as a recent trip to the grocery store proved. I wanted to buy some rice cakes (no comment on my food choices, please). I scanned the shelves for the lightly salted ones I like, but there were none to be found. After looking around for a few minutes, I found something I hadn’t seen before: SAVOURY rice cakes. I was thinking salty, with a little seasoning. Perfect.

Unfortunately for me, I have never been good at reading the fine print. Remember those tests you took in elementary school, where the teacher told you to read through the entire test and then fill it out? I was one of the kids who started filling in the answers immediately – before getting to the end, where there are instructions that tell you to simply put your pencil down and not answer a single question …

So it wasn’t until I got home and had my first bite of a “savoury” rice cake that I realized something was wrong. It wasn’t until I had a bitter aftertaste in my mouth that I read: Our delicious Wholegrain Rice Cakes are simply made with organically grown wholegrain brown rice puffed into a light texture and coated in yeast extract … Um. Excuse me?

That’s right. Yeast extract. Lovingly known here – and detested the world round – as Marmite.

I am sorry, England. I love your accents (at least the ones I can understand). I love your humor (Excuse me, your humour). I love your literature. I love your music. I love your art and poetry. I love your TV and I even mostly love your food. But I cannot understand for the life of me WHY you would put yeast extract on anything. And I hate to say it, but I really don’t care to ever know either. Sorry. It’s true.

On the other hand, at least I can read the packaging.