It
happens that the topic of food memory is a rich though non-caloric
one. I prefer the digestible length of one page notes but some
subjects require more commentary than others. Broadly, there are the
holiday food memories, ordinary food memories, the memories evoked by
aroma or by taste and the memories prompted by sight and occasion.
Most of these in my experience are good memories although the complex
nature of human biology does allow for unpleasant and unsavory
reflexes when confronted by certain foods. Sadly, my dear Wallace
couldn’t eat onions for years due to an untoward experience with
them during silly college fraternity hazing.
Anyhoo,
in my experience a food memory can be extraordinarily intense,
sometimes in a literary way, provoking floridly descriptive passages
of less than novel length. It casts me back to the entirety of the
circumstances at the time of my experience. I may be 5 years old or I
may be 25 and the reminder of the time, place and feeling can be
overwhelming. Often when I drink a certain sweet tea in a certain
glass with a certain sprig of mint I am fully transported to the
front steps of my childhood home, on a warm June day, a soft breeze
ruffling the leaves of the great pecan tree in front, the aromas of
mown hay sweeping across the road and up our little sloping yard, to
enfold me in a safe and happy embrace. It is pure calming pleasure
and contentment. This complete feeling is total and really does begin
at the top of my head and travels to my toes in a sort of force field
of emotion. It is fleeting but I can see and hear and sense all the
things as richly as I did at that prior moment. From the mossy green
step I see the slouched figure of the farmer across the way, one hand
on his tractor wheel, one adjusting his hat, stirring the field and
its creatures like the pilot of a ship traversing the waves. He
glances at me and raises his hand in recognition and I do the same in
shared approval. It captured serenity and the promise of glorious
summer all in one gesture.
On
the other hand a birthday cake of the white kind with yellow, red and
blue icing reminds me too well of the party where the guest of honor
got so over-excited and ate so much that he threw up in multicolor
hues across the table from his youthful guests. I haven’t felt the
same about birthday cake since, favors notwithstanding.
Distinct
from that, those special ‘dining out’ experiences with one’s
parents can have a strange and powerful hold. The appearance of
shrimp cocktail in a little dish of shaved ice centered on an ampoule
of unbearably hot tomato sauce always reminds me of my parents’
delight in treating us to utter extravagance from time to time and to
my high school graduation in particular when their mood was so
genuinely gleeful that I cried the entire time, for what I am still
not quite sure, but you know what I mean.
Fond
hugs,
Celeste
