Plated Nostalgia: Taste & Memories 🎂

Every memory you hold drives your palate. A reflection of traditions, culture and nostalgia, your taste is defined by your past. Understand how memories trigger taste in so many beautifully complex ways.

Savour The Sound

Let the music guide you back to childhood; calm, precious and fleeting. Feel the past in your bones and let the taste of nostalgia flow through your mind with our curated Spotify playlist. ▶️

The Psyche

The flicker of birthday candles on a cake too big for you, the fuzz and yearn for it all. A childhood favourite dish, the familiar smell of your mother’s cooking drifting to a cluttered bedroom. Your past says it all, whether these experiences are good or bad, they influence how you taste food throughout the rest of your life. Your memories shape you, limit you and comfort you all at once.

When you eat something, the smell and taste cues are actually processed in the same areas as memory and emotion; those senses are evocative, grounding and an entire experience in themselves. Buttered toast before school, Christmas cookies and an extra chocolatey hot chocolate, you can taste them in the back of your throat like a burning memory. You feel your own senses pulling you into the past.

Family traditions from everyday meal times to holiday celebrations structure the mind. If you grow up eating at a specific time you may find yourself getting hungry at that specific time, it’s a habit, it's your brain being wired. Traditions create imprints that you will find yourself going back to over and over again. Whether it be comfort that you seek, routine or calm within calamity, your brain searches for those rituals. 

As an adult, your palate is shaped by your past. A ‘flavour compass’ created by your inner child. If you were raised on pancakes and sugared oatmeal for breakfast, you may crave sugar to start your mornings. If your culture values spice then your comfort may always carry heat. These little rituals last a lifetime, and the intricacy of our habits can so easily guide us to satisfaction.

That rush though

Your experiences with certain dishes can also create links to how enjoyable the food is for you. Eating the same bowl of ramen every night may reduce the value of it. The same goes for using food as a reward, the warmth of the first slice of a chocolate cake on your birthday; your mind recalls all your past experiences with this food, and decides it’s a positive experience.

Food isn't just about nourishment but identity. Every taste is a reflection of where you’ve been, your family, your traditions, a story. When you crave something, you want stimulation, the feeling of being full and the warmth of familiarity; to return and remember. The connection is almost spiritual; the smell of browned butter, the clink of cutlery and the sweetness of the past on your tongue.

Test it, challenge yourself, allow your senses to consume. Remake a dish that's fuller in memories, overflowing in your past. Your dad’s pancake recipe, where you drown them in honey and lemon, or nanna’s stuffat tal-fenek that was always too hot and burnt at the brim of your lips. Once you’ve smelt the slow simmer of your childhood favourite soup, you’ll feel it. The nostalgia comes rushing back and you’ll realise it's not food you’re tasting, but the emotions attached to it.

Memories live in the tastebuds. Within the warmth of a dish, the crunch, sizzle or pop of the first bite; a memory is revoked. Lighting your brain up in recognition, processing smell and taste and memory all at once. Every flavour on your tongue brings that wave of longing, they use your memories to rewind. A quiet hum of connection, both the past and present folded together in flavour. 

Food is beyond taste when you’re eating to remember. It’s time travel on a plate. And while nostalgia is a funny feeling–yearning for a time that has long gone–the best you can do is sit with it, and perhaps that plate of cookies you made using your mama's recipe.

Tastes Like Then 🖌️

Stir up a plate of nostalgia using our Pinterest mood board. 

Dance through the past and find a dish that resonates with YOU using our Pinterest mood boards; created to inspire dishes that lie between flavour and feeling. 🖌️

💌 Food for Thought

What childhood dish can you recreate to trigger the warmth that nostalgia brings? The same hands–years apart– creating a reimagined dish that the younger you would be proud of.

Share your plate on Instagram and tag @thebajtra for a chance to be featured.

& remember, all you taste is what you are; savour it.