Food and associations

I've just had an odd experience.

I'm pottering around the Cantina, mostly revising and sitting on the computer every now and then. Anyway, I recently took a break for lunch, and because there was a weird collection of things in the house wound up making a pasta dish - pasta with a sauce made up of hot dogs, and olives, with a pesto base and some added spice.

The odd part of this is that that's a dish that I used to cook a lot when I was living with Jason. We were dirt poor, often hungry, and so we used to eat a lot of tesco value pasta with sauces made up of cheap stuff, like hot dogs. Jason loved olives, so I used to add them a lot. We'd cover our food in spices and curry powder because we both liked spicey food.

Since I've broken up with Jason and left Edinburgh I've barely eaten any of that. In America, Mike didn't eat pasta particularly. Then I went travelling, then lived with my dad, and then when I moved out it was to move in to Chez isalani, pretty much with pierot and it isn't the kind of dish that either Anthony or Jeremiah are very fond of.

And so I moved on. Yet today I cooked and for some reason it brought so many memories back. It also got me thinking about dramatically my eating habits and tastes have changed over the years, and how there are so many foods that I associate with specific times in my life, with specific relationships even.

( rambling )

It's strange how I've never thought about this before. Food is something I suppose I've always thought of as a constant. 'Sally likes strawberries' or 'Sally doesn't like fish', but my tastes and my eating patterns really have changed a lot. I think I've always failed to think about food as a trigger for memory, while being very aware of how other sensory experiences, such as music, or scent, triggers me very strongly.

It's very odd.

Am I alone in this? Have other people always had constant eating patterns or have they changed? Can food be a trigger for memory for other people as well?

Food and associations

I've just had an odd experience.

I'm pottering around the Cantina, mostly revising and sitting on the computer every now and then. Anyway, I recently took a break for lunch, and because there was a weird collection of things in the house wound up making a pasta dish - pasta with a sauce made up of hot dogs, and olives, with a pesto base and some added spice.

The odd part of this is that that's a dish that I used to cook a lot when I was living with Jason. We were dirt poor, often hungry, and so we used to eat a lot of tesco value pasta with sauces made up of cheap stuff, like hot dogs. Jason loved olives, so I used to add them a lot. We'd cover our food in spices and curry powder because we both liked spicey food.

Since I've broken up with Jason and left Edinburgh I've barely eaten any of that. In America, Mike didn't eat pasta particularly. Then I went travelling, then lived with my dad, and then when I moved out it was to move in to Chez isalani, pretty much with pierot and it isn't the kind of dish that either Anthony or Jeremiah are very fond of.

And so I moved on. Yet today I cooked and for some reason it brought so many memories back. It also got me thinking about dramatically my eating habits and tastes have changed over the years, and how there are so many foods that I associate with specific times in my life, with specific relationships even.

( rambling )

It's strange how I've never thought about this before. Food is something I suppose I've always thought of as a constant. 'Sally likes strawberries' or 'Sally doesn't like fish', but my tastes and my eating patterns really have changed a lot. I think I've always failed to think about food as a trigger for memory, while being very aware of how other sensory experiences, such as music, or scent, triggers me very strongly.

It's very odd.

Am I alone in this? Have other people always had constant eating patterns or have they changed? Can food be a trigger for memory for other people as well?