Food and associations

[annwfyn]

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.

I still associate a certain kind of apple strudel (not the kind you buy from Tescos and cook at home) with Weaver's Walk cafe in Newbury, and sitting there for hours and hours with Leah, or Ali, and sometimes other friends from school. I associate tinned potatoes and Bird's Eye crispy chicken with the years living with eladriell in Edinburgh, when I'd try and pathetically come up with something I could cook which would equate to 'meat and two veg' and wouldn't set off any of Paul's allergies. Christ...I don't think I've made a roast chicken dinner since those days either, and I used to cook them fairly often then. It was a relatively cheap way of feeding Paul and the assortment of friends who appeared in the house.

I associate hot dog and pesto with pasta with living with Jason, and I associate very thick strawberry milk shakes with late nights sitting in diners, making sure Mike had eaten instead of watching him go hyperglycemic. I associate paella with pierot - heck - I really associate fresh tiger prawns with Jeremiah. I associate sea food rissotto with Vittoria's in Edinburgh, and I remember many many meals there - often with incursus and bluepixie. Pasta and mince in huge quantities - I'm not sure if I associate that more with cairmen or scimon. I think they've both cooked such dishes for me, and I know I pretty much never use mince myself.

I have changed in terms of what I eat. I've lost the ability to eat really spicey curries which I could do easily when I was 19 and living in Nepal. I've lost the ability to eat McDonalds, which tasted lovely to me when I was 15, and last time I had some tasted horribly greasy and stuck to my mouth. I get hungry now in a way I didn't when I was 18 when I would dodge any meal I was given half a chance to.

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?

Comments

[cristobel.livejournal.com]

yeah, and I think you go through phases as well don't you? Maybe not such an issue for you sunny climate south of England dwellers, but here in the frozen north I find that I cook a lot more large filling warm food, even in summer.

so, Sally, I went out to buy a coffee, and on my way back I passed a man who had just lit his pipe. I love the smell and taste of tobacco pipe smoke. My uncle used to put his pipe in my mouth for me to taste when I was young. He died when I was three, so I'm really surprised I remember this, but the smell and taste brings it all back! How totally would I have a fit if someone did that to a small child today!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It's really odd how things which seemed absolutely fine 20 years ago are just really viewed as dubious now. It's also amazing how small children can remember things. I can still remember the wallpaper in the first bedroom I ever had of my own, in Lyndhurst, and we moved away from that house when I was five years old. It's amazing how things stick at times.