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I have been nursing a huge box of Weetbix that the wonderful Jo sent me at ridiculous expense. It’s been lovely to wake up to a bowl of warm wheaty goo. With banana!

The trouble is… someone else has developed a taste for it. So now I’m on a mission to find a more local source. The Sanitarium website claims that it’s sold here under the name “Aussie Morning” - but it has never been seen in the wild as far as I know.

Now for those not properly schooled in the Art of the Weetbix brekkie, you would nonchalantly suggest that I purchase the UK alternative Weet-a-bix. Except it tastes…. wrong. And when something tastes wrong it is never satisfying.

Turns out Weetbix is one of those taste memories you have - which often start in childhood. This is famously seen in the great Vegemite vs Marmite, and Coca Cola vs Pepsi debates. Also it’s a Milo issue as well - different countries have different levels of ingredients - some make it sweeter, others maltier - and if you don’t get the one you are most used to it tastes off.

This is one reason why advertisers try to target kids as young as possible. They try to get in at the beginning of the taste memory period. They know that if they are too late then the switch is nigh on impossible.

You also see this when a company changes the basic formula of something. Customers protest because their taste memory registers it as not right.

There are of course some freaks who are able to switch easily between brands. But they will never become executive chefs or sommeliers.

I have one taste memory food though that I can’t ever seem to replace. The taste of home grown apricots ripening on a tree. Untouched by pesticides. Picked off the tree when they are perfectly ripe. The apricots from the tree in my grandmothers backyard.

No apricot has ever matched the full, sweet taste of those. The ones I’ve bought here seem to go from unripe to rotten without ever properly passing through ripe. They are pretty much void of actual apricot taste. They are balls of fibre and some vaguely apricot tasting water. No wonder they aren’t popular.

Anyway the search for the Aussie Morning continues…. would be grateful for any leads!