I almost walked past the aisle but something made me stop and turn.
A glint of yellow on black. A familiar word draped across the face of an object. It caught my eye and I moved towards the source of this sudden interruption.
With only a few other jars for company, it sat there like a blast from my past, a long lost friend waiting patiently for me. There sat my childhood and my adolescence, a ghost of my former English life. And seeing it unexpectedly sent me tumbling down memory lane, a surge of homesickness passing through me.
Standing there, I thought back to a childhood holiday in the German Black Forest with my grandmother. It was the first time I’d been away from my parents and sister. In other words, it was a big deal.
Even as a young boy, I knew I’d struggle to be away from home but one thing kept me going – my love for a thick, black yeasty extract known as Marmite.
My mate Marmite.
Photo credit: Sarah Fagg (Flickr Creative Commons) |
Seeking comfort in a spread
Commonly spread on toast or in sandwiches across the UK, Marmite is a food you either like or loathe, love or hate.
It’s a polarising delicacy, dividing the country’s taste buds and leaving large numbers of children hooked from an early age. I was one such child, raised on the wholesome goodness of this tar-like creation, unable to resist its gloopy touch each and every single day.
On this first trip abroad without the comfort of my immediate family, I sought solace in my favourite spread, Marmite.
As long as I could have my regular Marmite sandwiches, I’d be alright. I might well be scared of being far from home, but I’d be okay.
And I was.
Reminders of home
My illogical passion for Marmite was such that until I left the UK in 2003, I was still reaching for it on a daily basis, lathering my wholemeal sliced bread with the rich, gooey liquid-like stuff.
When we moved abroad, it was one of many things I missed from home. I stuffed my suitcase with jars and jars, and after arriving in Canada, searched high and low for any sign of the British black gold.
Occasionally I’d discover a jar or two, ridiculously overpriced and often neglected at the back of a Canadian grocery store. My parents would send over extra supplies and sometimes a jar would turn up hidden among my Chrissy presents.
Over time, my need for it somehow dropped away.
Standing there in that Australian supermarket, I felt a twinge of sadness at realising my inexplicable hunger for Marmite had disappeared. And I didn’t really miss it. I’d replaced it with a local variation but the meaning ran deeper than mere culinary choices.
As my burning desire for Marmite diminished, so too had my need for other British things from home. Those small reminders I initially craved had become less vital in my new life.
I’d grown apart from my former home. I was inadvertently moving on.
Out of sight, out of mind
If I could move on from my childhood love of something this dear and special to me, what else had I moved on from? Favourite pastimes and practices, old friends, worse still… family?
Out of sight, out of mind never felt truer in that supermarket aisle. So much of me had changed over the course of the past ten years and I wondered what else I’d forgotten about.
I had clear and cherished memories of celebrations at Christmas, the weekly shows on TV, even the way people spend their time down the local pub or walking the dog through a farmer’s field. Now the memories are no longer as vivid and it takes a jar of Marmite in a supermarket aisle to bring them all rushing back.
I wonder if it’s part of the process of living away.
After greater periods away, you adjust and connect more deeply to your new life. Meanwhile, you move on from the old.
If I could pick things up from my former life and bring them over here – the people, the places, customs and traditions – it might be a good thing. If I could pull everything into one place, no longer split between countries and continents, maybe the ghosts of my past would become part of the present.
But they won’t because of a decision I made many years ago. A decision I’m thankful for but a decision in which I said goodbye to many things and many people, including a precious, much loved yeasty friend.
What do you still miss from home? What would you miss if you ever moved away? And do you love or loathe Marmite?
This post was kindly sponsored by Goopping.com.
Former expatriate, Chris Boyle, spent years living in Japan. He experienced first-hand the challenge trying to get products from home shipped to him abroad. Upon returning to the United States in 1996, Boyle received so many requests from friends and acquaintances to send groceries and U.S. goods that he founded a package forwarding service called Goopping.com.
This service enables expats or citizens living outside of the U.S. to purchase any U.S. groceries or products and have them shipped right to their door, whatever country they are in. Everything from Pop-tarts to Sephora, Nike to Reese’s, U.S. products and prices are made available to anyone living outside of the U.S.
Boyle created the site to work like this: When you register with Goopping.com, you get a free U.S. shipping address. When shopping online from a store that either won’t ship internationally, or charges very high shipping rates, simply enter your U.S. Goopping address as your shipping address. The store delivers your purchases to your Goopping address and Goopping combines all your purchases into one. They then forward these U.S. products right to your door anywhere in the world.
Goopping also offers a Buy-for-Me service so you can request they make a purchase for you. This is useful if a store won’t accept your international credit card. Because of the high volumes Goopping ships, the site can provide and shoppers with the lowest forwarding rates in the industry.
Just a little expat-experience making life easier.
Tiffany Harrison says
“After greater periods away, you adjust and connect more deeply to your new life. Meanwhile, you move on from the old.” I couldn’t agree more with this. I think living far and away from home also helps you to cherish the old memories and experiences, particularly when something familiar causes them to come rushing back. Maybe they aren’t at the forefront of your memory as you adjust to a new home away from home, but they’re still there; perhaps just waiting for something as simple as a jar of marmite to take up residence once again right in front of you. Great post, per usual 😉
Russell V J Ward says
Thanks, Tiffany 🙂 I do still cherish all of those memories of old but they slip away more and more so it’s quite bizarre that a jar of spread helps bring them rushing back. But I’m grateful for that. They’re buried but not gone… Hope winter is going easy on you over there.
Russell V J Ward says
Thanks, Tamkara, and so pleased you found my blog – hope to see you over here again. Elliot just gurgled and burped but I’m sure he meant to say “thank you” 🙂
Travel Online says
being away from home makes us miss the food and the people we always get to see. Your craving for Marmite is also what I feel towards my mom’s cupcakes. Whenever I see cupcakes in any Australia bakery, I automatically think of my mom’s home made cakes. Anyways, I like how you wrote this article, complete details and it made me drop everything I’m doing and concentrate on reading. I enjoyed it, thank you.
Russell V J Ward says
Thanks guys. Nothing wrong with a good homemade cupcake too 🙂
ML Awanohara says
Hi, Russell. Though I don’t share your love of Marmite (far from it!), as a person who lived abroad for many years, I can really identify with the sentiments expressed in this post. Funnily enough, I tend to have thoughts along these lines every year at this very time (American Thanksgiving). At the beginning of my expat years, spent in the UK, I really missed this quintessentially American holiday and tried to recreate it with other expat friends, often with Brits joining in. It was never the same. Then, after I married a Brit, settled into the culture and realized that I’d be getting a turkey dinner every Christmas that was rather similar, I didn’t bother with Thanksgiving any more — even reaching the point where I didn’t really miss it.
What had happened? Had the memories faded, or had I just grown up and become less dependent on my family? I’m not sure I can answer this question to this day.
As you know, I’m now back in my native USA, and one of the ironies I discovered in coming home again is that Thanksgiving soon became MY VERY FAVORITE holiday, as it entails enjoying a nice meal with family and friends — doesn’t have the commercialization of Christmas. That said, I have just now celebrated the holiday with friends here in NYC, and we didn’t have turkey — which didn’t bother me a bit! I am still detached from the core traditions — a legacy of my expat years? And I also find the Pilgrim-Indian story somewhat offensive. Would this have bothered me had I never been an expat in a non-Caucasian country (I lived in Japan after Britain)?
Something is definitely gained from being an expat, but something is also lost: a child-like innocence? Which, as I say, may have been lost anyway had you stayed put in your native land, but maybe not to the same extent?
Thanks once again for your excellent post helping me to puzzle some of these things out…
Russell V J Ward says
Hey ML, I think Thanksgiving would be a tough one. Such a major celebration in North America and then, on moving to the UK, nothing. I’d find that tough. I think there is a ‘growing up’ element to it. Almost like an independence. We’re okay and we can survive on our own but we do also move on.
It seems like moving abroad opened up your eyes and made you challenge long-held traditions that you’d never had reason to question before. Nothing wrong with that but you could see it as sad i.e. a lost innocence, or a revelation i.e. you see things more clearly for what they are. All this to say, I still need to get you sampling Marmite and, failing that, I’ll send over some local Australian tucker of the same breed – Vegemite 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
ML Awanohara says
Hahaha. I can just see it: “My new mate, Marmite” or “My new mate, Vegemite.” Either way, don’t be in a rush to send it! 😉
Russell V J Ward says
Haha, that’s right. Have you ever tried either? Oh my, you have’t lived yet!
Adventures says
Love the phrase ‘living away’, so simple yet so loaded with meaning
Russell V J Ward says
It sure is, isn’t it? Much as the phrase ‘returning home’ seems so simple but I imagine it’s had its own challenges, ups, and hopefully just a few ‘downs’ for you.
accidentally seasoned hobo says
My recent work has included diaspora, travel and media. I often state that ‘food’ is the last thing to go, even after language. Its smells, and taste and texture remains ingrained in us–and may be for that reason Proust could write volumes of ‘remembrance past’ after he had bitten into a pastry he used to relish as a boy!! I am still amazed at how much I enjoyed my Vegemite during my years in fiji…it had to be used in the right amount though. And years away around the world…my tea is very different, tea bags rather than loose tea…without sugar and milk rather than with them….something I could not ever have imagined. Goes to show us how we really are always in the ‘process of making’ who we are capable of becoming….
Russell V J Ward says
Absolutely. And well put. As for me, my Vegemite is spread rather too thickly for my own good but these things happen 😉
accidentally seasoned hobo says
Happy Birthday Elliott, albeit a bit late…
How we rush into his room in the early morning like two kids hurrying to open their Christmas presents. – (MAKE SURE HE READS THIS SENTENCE AGAIN ON HIS 10, 18th, 21st, 30th birthday and so on…..:)) In asia there is a tradition of giving away someone on a child’s birthday –may be because being an old continent they would not see many children survive….so often the saying goes, ‘this is from the little one, on his birthday to you’…..so it is right that he feels like a gift himself….:)
Russell V J Ward says
Hey, that’s still great. Thanks for the birthday wishes for Elliot and for the wise words to remember! Hope you had a great Xmas and NY 🙂