Researchers believe that connecting multiple sensory associations can strengthen our working memory, and exposure to particular sensory stimuli can evoke recall of memories, no matter how long ago the memory was formed. Think back to your childhood- do any memories stand out? What happened in them, is there a particular sharp scent or smell associated with it? The feeling of itchy clothing on a warm spring morning, or a heavy, warm quilt, shared between friends, huddled by campfire in the midst of a cool summer night? Or maybe your memory is connected with food, a perfect recipe for memory retention, with nearly every sensory reacting to the dish; the smell of the food, the taste of it (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or umami, or a mixture), the textures, the sounds. The meal or food itself might not be the key feature of the memory, but rather something to hook onto for the formation of the memory; maybe this was your mother’s favorite dish, only eaten for special occasions like after a successful musical recital, or eaten with college roommates the last time you hung out before graduation. Emotions connected to those memories can also create another layer to the formation; bittersweet, love, excitement, fear, loneliness, joy, frustration, grief, chaos. Every time you experience the same stimuli, those memories bubble up to the surface like a pot of boiling water, ready for a serving of noodles.
This idea, that food has the power of connecting people with memories, is a theme found throughout “Bite-by-Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees“, a compilation of autobiographical short stories by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. In “Bite-by-Bite”, Nezhukumatathil connects certain foods and dishes to her own memories and associations, from childhood to adulthood, the mundane to the sophisticated. In anticipation for the A “Bite by Bite” Celebration program held at WPPL on April 25, I have compiled stories from various members of our staff connecting our favorite foods or dishes to their memories. Bon appétit!
Sunday Pot Roasts
Pot roast has always been a Sunday dish, tender meat cooking for hours in a thin gravy bath, surrounded by white potato chunks, juicy carrots and thin slices of celery. Growing up, my parents would throw the ingredients into our trusty slow cooker before we tumbled into the car for church, and by the time we got back home from service, the house smelled of the alluring dish. Not ready yet. The following few hours would be spent preparing the house for company, changing into comfortable clothes, and practicing piano in the living room, trying to hear the keys over my mother’s vacuuming and the football game playing on the television set. Then, the setting of the table- my role in the chaos- folding linen napkins and placing silverware just so, as my mom sprays the pan for dinner rolls, the oven preheated. Just as the last plate was laid on the table, the doorbell rang out. Oh no, she’s early. Dad opens the door to my grandmother and a parade of welcoming hugs. In the background, the television roars, a touchdown. Mom sets an egg timer, rolls slide in the oven, and returns to the conversations between cutting the fall-apart roast, updating each other on their weeks, upcoming plans, and complaints about the weather. It’s all boring to a kid, but it’s a part of the process, and after small talk comes the feast.
The egg timer buzzes, short and shrill, as if to say, it’s time, it’s time, nooooow. Dad and I take the platters piled up with roasted veggies and meat, and the basket full of golden dinner rolls to the table, butter shimmering. The four of us- my parents, my grandmother, and I, take our spots at the dining room table, bow our heads, and dive in to the meal. The football game replaced by classical music, my grandmother’s favorite, and the ambiance brings warmth and softness to the chilly autumn Michigan air outside. Every bite brings home, comfort, and familiarity, a simple meal and warm hugs signaling, this is home.
Monster Cookies
My family has a recipe, honed through many, many messy kitchen experiments, of what we call Monster Cookies. This cookie has just about everything but the kitchen sink in it – gooey chocolate chips, swirls of peanut butter, oatmeal, cinnamon, whatever sounds good to my dad that day – and it is my favorite treat ever because it’s delicious (of course) but also because it reminds me of my family at their very best. We always make these cookies at Christmastime, and we make a truly monstrously large batch every time. After all those kitchen experiments, we discovered that the best way to mix up such a large batch is to dump all the ingredients into a giant plastic tote, roll up our sleeves, and mix with our hands! We used to have whole parties dedicated to the mixing and baking of these cookies, and at the end our guests would return home with a tin of fresh, warm, and enormous Monster Cookies, as well as the recipe (with an image of the Cookie Monster right at the top, to which my dad would point and say “that’s me” with a cheeky grin), so that the joy of these messy monstrous morsels can be shared with everyone. I truly treasure the memories of making Monster Cookies with my family & friends, and I look forward to making many, many, many more in years to come.
Cinny Rolls
My family was more of an ice cream family than a baked treat family. However, my high school used to have highly-anticipated cinnamon roll days, when the recess air smelled wonderful. To this day I have never seen any other cinnamon roll so big and fluffy, with a light glaze, the sugar slightly crisp around the edges, so different from the usual school-food cardboard. I always brought a lunch from home, so I didn’t stand in line to claim my own cinnamon roll. Instead, I would wait while one of my friends got her own, and then shamelessly mooch off of her. She let me tear off a little segment, and I’d make do with that one little taste, dreaming of devouring that perfect, soft center (even I am not so shameless as to ask someone for the best part of a cinnamon roll). The cinnamon rolls weren’t part of lunch; they came out during the morning recess slot, which meant everyone had to get to the cafeteria, wait through the line, and then eat them in fifteen minutes. Sometimes, the bell would ring before my friend finished, and I’d swoop in like a seagull, claiming the rest of her roll before she tossed her tray. We’d part ways, and I’d happily munch my way to class.
Years later, it occurred to me that I could try to make my own. The first recipe that I found online turned out to be a winner, and since then I’ve made them for friends, family, and potlucks. Sometimes they turn out a little weird, but I am slowly refining my process. The recipe calls for a stand mixer, but I have always laboriously hand-kneaded the dough. Putting in a little sweat (figuratively!!) makes them taste better. I started my own tradition of making them for Easter morning, and this year’s batch were nearly perfect. Not as big as the recess-rolls, but still nice and fluffy, with a good chew to them. I haven’t yet mastered my glaze. Part of the problem is that a glaze won’t set if the rolls are still warm from the oven… and they’re all usually eaten before they can cool! Ah well, it’s a good problem to have. It means I’m surrounded by people who love cinnamon rolls me!
Recipe: https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/best-cinnamon-rolls/
Soup & Cinema
I was never much of a fan of soup; stew is great and chili is too, but soup was always too messy for me and I never found myself wanting it. That has all changed this past year after reconnecting with a college friend of mine and her husband. They invited me and my partner over to their house one evening for dinner and a movie; soup paired with the first Scream movie. What started as a one-off occasion quickly turned into a weekly tradition, though, and now we’re over 6 months into what we call “Soup & Cinema”. Monday evenings we travel out to their house and are presented with a new, fantastic soup each time, and we catch up about our week, cracking jokes and cracking up between bites before we start the movie we’ve chosen. This tradition has come to mean so much to all of us that we have practically the rest of this year planned out already, each month with a different movie theme and, of course, an incredible roster of delicious recipes. These days, soup is my favorite food.
Late Night Calzones
Between Montgomery Hall and the dormitories is a stretch of pavement, too wide to be a sidewalk and too short to be a proper two-way road, an alley way connecting students to their main building, housing the animation, visual effects, and game design majors. I walked this alleyway hundreds of times from dusk to dawn while attending SCAD for my bachelor’s degree, innumerous late nights attending class and working on homework, hunched over animation tables and hands smudged with charcoal. Wednesday nights were marked with visiting food trucks that parked in that patch of cement, rotating selections that offered a variety of different foods for students in exchange for meal swipes, something new to break the monotony of the typical cafeteria food selections. Third Wednesday food trucks were my favorites: Calzones and Pizzas. Limited only by the maximum selection options per meal swipe, each student could theoretically make hundreds of unique combinations between pizza and calzones. My favorite? Grilled chicken with broccoli, alfredo sauce, and shaved parmesan cheese, covered in a ball of toasted dough. For those late night sessions locked up in a classroom, drawing the same image hundreds of times, slightly adjusting each line to suggest a sequential movement on thin paper, those calzones were an excuse for a drawing break, to breathe in the fresh air and rest my eyes from the pencil and paper. I still regard those years fondly, and I miss those calzones, warm from the oven, nearly five years since my graduation.
Did you enjoy reading about our memory connections to food? Join WPPL at the “A “Bite by Bite” Celebration – Part of Bite Into Books” program on April 25 for waffle decorating, syrup tasting, and butter blending, and other activities!
Hungry yet? Check out WPPL’s plentiful collection of cookbooks for a variety of different ages and skill levels by clicking the link here.
