Ask Mr. Know-It-All

Dr. Stork is off the market

By Gary Clothier

Q: Recently on “The Doc­tors,” I noticed that Dr. Stork was wear­ing a wed­ding band. When did he get mar­ried and to whom? — H.S., Tor­rance, Calif.

A: Dr. Travis Stork mar­ried his long­time girl­friend, pedi­a­tri­cian Char­lotte Brown, on June 30.

Stork has been a pan­elist on the syn­di­cated day­time talk show “The Doc­tors” since 2008. He was the bach­e­lor on “The Bach­e­lor” in 2006.

Q: New Zealand has a national mar­garine or food spread that went through a short­age, with not enough for the coun­try or even for their Olympic ath­letes this sum­mer. What is the name of this spread? Will you sup­ply some his­tory of this prod­uct and describe its fla­vor? — T.W., Flint­stone, Md.

A: The prod­uct is a spread called Mar­mite. In the late 1800s, a Ger­man sci­en­tist found that if brewer’s yeast was con­cen­trated, it could be eaten. With that, Mar­mite Food Extract Co. was founded in Great Britain, with Mar­mite as its prin­ci­pal prod­uct. It is named after the French “mar­mite,” mean­ing “large cook­ing pot.”

Because the prod­uct became so pop­u­lar in the U.K., the San­i­tar­ium Health Food Co. started dis­trib­ut­ing it in New Zealand and Aus­tralia in 1908. Later, sugar and caramel were added to the prod­uct and other ingre­di­ent amounts changed.

Mar­mite is pop­u­lar in Great Britain, New Zealand, Aus­tralia and the Pacific Islands. The main ingre­di­ent is the yeast that is a by-product of beer mak­ing. Peo­ple describe the taste as salty, malty and some­what like beef bouil­lon. The New Zealand ver­sion is sweeter than the British ver­sion. It is avail­able in the U.S. through mail order or spe­cialty shops.

DID YOU KNOW? The name of the supervil­lain the Rid­dler in the “Bat­man” comic strip is E. Nigma. The E is for Edward.

Q: Why are bag­pipes played at the funer­als of police­men and fire­men? When did the tra­di­tion start? — J.P., Elm­wood, Ill.

A: The tra­di­tion of play­ing bag­pipes at police and fire­fighter funer­als in the U.S. orig­i­nated in the mid-1800s, when great num­bers of Irish immi­grated dur­ing the Great Potato Famine. Bag­pipes were tra­di­tion­ally played at Irish and Scot­tish wed­dings and funer­als. When the Irish came to the U.S., so did the tradition.

Irish immi­grants were treated poorly, and only the most dan­ger­ous jobs were avail­able to them. Many became fire­men and police­men. When there was a funeral, they car­ried out their tra­di­tion of play­ing bag­pipes. The prac­tice has been handed down to this day. Scot­tish bag­pipes are louder than Irish ones, so they are the ones heard today.

Q: I used to lis­ten to a very funny man named Mark Rus­sell on PBS. He wrote polit­i­cal satires with music and sang them while play­ing the piano. The pro­gram stopped about three years ago with­out expla­na­tion. Can you tell me what hap­pened? — M.J., Naples, Fla.

A: Mark Rus­sell announced he was retir­ing in 2010. He con­tin­ues to write and make appear­ances. He is 80 years old. Visit MarkRussell.net for jokes and videos of his performances.

Q: I recently saw a pic­ture of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Was he a child star? His eyes and voice look and sound famil­iar. Will you tell me more about him? — D.R., Wyoming, Ill.

A: Joseph Gordon-Levitt was indeed a child actor. He was on numer­ous TV shows as a child, includ­ing “Dark Shad­ows,” “The Pow­ers That Be” and “3rd Rock From the Sun.” More recently, he has been seen in the films “Incep­tion,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Looper” and “Lincoln.”

Gordon-Levitt was born in 1981 in Los Ange­les. His mater­nal grand­fa­ther, Michael Gor­don, was a well-known movie director.

(Send your ques­tions to Mr. Know-It-All at AskMrKIA@gmail.com or c/o Uni­ver­sal Uclick, 1130 Wal­nut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

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