The World Famous Vegeta

“Vegeta?  Vegeta???  What do you mean you don’t know what Vegeta is!!  The whole world knows Vegeta!  It is famous.  Everyone, everyone in the world, knows Vegeta!!!”

For three weeks, I heard this, thinking how is this possible that I am that much of an idiot, when EVERYONE – in the world- knows it and I have never heard of it.  Yet no one could really tell me – in English – what it was.

“It’s a …thing…with vegetables, and other things – all together in a pot…”

“Oh, like a stew?

“No, no, not a stew.  A thing…”

“A casserole?”

“No, not that, it’s different.  Oh, it’s difficult to explain.”

And then there was the lady at the market who sold her own mixture of herbs and spices.  I figured she, of all people, would be able to tell me.  Surely she would use her products to make the dish called Vegeta? She just looked horrified and said, no, she didn’t use it because they used things that she didn’t like.  But still, I had no idea what Vegeta meant.

And then in the grocery store, looking for pepper, there it is, staring me in the face:  Vegeta, on the bottles.  It is a Croatian company and brand name for spices and food flavoring!!  It has a pretty cool website, too.  And I have no idea about the products, because I didn’t even buy Vegeta pepper!