I believe it’s only possible to like Vegemite if it’s eaten by people you love or given to you by someone you trust, even though my mom betrayed mine when she handed it to me on toast when I was 8 telling me it was chocolate. Before I knew it, it became a part of my morning ritual and forever banished me from the category picky-eater. I am not Australian, nor is my mom, but Vegemite became the closest substitute she could find to its British counterpart Marmite, when she arrived in Los Angeles in 1987 after immigrating from England. I always assumed she must’ve been introduced to it there, but when I found out that she first had it in South Africa, big gaps in my knowledge became clear, upon realizing I didn’t know why they were eating a British spread there. These gaps seemed to mirror the ones that were upheld by her censored surroundings growing up in apartheid South Africa. It took her leaving the country to understand what she was living in, and me questioning a staple in my breakfast routine to begin to unravel the colonial history of where my mom grew up. From the Dutch settlement and displacement of local tribes, to when my Scottish lineage likely arrived during British occupation, the brutal wars that followed between the Boers and British, the rebound of Afrikaner Nationalist groups that fueled the apartheid and the lasting stamp of British culture that can be found on the shelves in supermarkets. I am to Vegemite as my mom is to South Africa. Many times removed.

– Brenna Bruggeman

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant