One of my clearest memories is sitting in the kitchen, my bare feet swinging from my chair. I have red bobbles in my pigtails and its Sunday evening. It’s warm and my sisters and I are feasting on our very favourite thing, Marie’s and milk.
My mum made this very wonderful treat for us. A simple bowl of Marie biscuits and warm milk with a sprinkling of brown sugar. The Marie’s go all soft and the sweet warm milk was just so comforting. I remember being so happy.
Food memory and nostalgia mystifies and excites top chefs and foodies alike. It is inside us all in unique ways and we all experience it differently and at different times. Heston Blumenthal is enthralled by it and I have seen him talk about it, it’s electrifying. He wants to be able to imitate it, but what he says is true – it’s almost impossible.
We all have our own memories, the scent of jasmine in Spring time mixed with boerewors on the braai triggers the memory of when I fell and broke my wrist on the jungle gym. The taste of a Zoo Biscuit flashes back to the memory of playing Sardine’s at my best friend’s house and being forgotten in my hiding place.
It’s all so personal and wonderfully special.
There are also the more general of memories that bring a lot of us into the same happy place. Like milk tart and Malva pudding, bredies and braais that we all experienced growing up as South Africans. I can see it, plain as day on food24, the most searched and visited recipes are exactly those ones, the one’s everyone loves.
What are your food memories? I’d love to hear all about them, so please drop me a mail and share.