Food is not only food
Steel Notes Magazine
January 2017
Alessia Bastianelli – Italy
Venice 12.27.2016
Food is not only food
The holidays are coming . This is the time of family , gifts , travel , and food : a lot of food . Regardless of our culture , we expect abundant lunches or dinners made from mostly traditional recipes . Behind every recipe , we find a piece of us , our culture , our childhood experiences and our memories that we recall especially at this time of year . Proust knew this well when in his “ In Search of Lost Time ,” he relates a moment in which the past intrudes upon the present in an unexpected way with no apparent logic , simply through some crumbs in a steaming cup of tea . From that moment , little Marcel returns to his memories of eating madeleines . A bit of sweetness helps to complete the puzzle of his memories . That buttery , sweet , shell-shaped , tea-soaked cookie is not simply a piece of food but serves to trigger the writer ’ s memories . The madeleine crumbs are the metaphorical reason behind the memories formed by the flavors , scents , textures , and colors that our brain has stored since the early days of our life and even earlier , when we were in our mothers ’ wombs . Those memories are the basis of our personal tastes , and every day , consciously or unconsciously , upon which we draw when we eat and when we think about , seek , find and cook dishes that will be brought to the table in one of the most communicative acts par excellence : the sharing of meals . The nutritional act is the first way in which the individual becomes aware of himself . From the first day of life , it is the basis of
mutual understanding between a mother and child . It specializes and focuses on growth in interactive moments shared with family during which recipes , flavors and colors have been handed down . Affective sharing occurs early between the mother and child during lactation . Then , when the child grows , the emotional sharing with the entire family is a distinctive feature at the base of our memory of the dish . Not only is the moment characterized by taste and sensory sensations , but also emotional atmosphere and emotional sensation have influenced that particular and specific moment . Emotional atmosphere , sounds , dialogues , thoughts and psychological feelings that we experience in our meals shared with others or alone will be translated semantically in our memories related to food . In this way , it will be psychologically and conditionally characterized in relation to positive or negative connotations associated with it . Proust ’ s idea was to highlight how taste and smell have a key role in memory and retrieving memories . Today , neuroscience research confirms and supports his idea . Research demonstrates how the senses of smell and taste are more sentimental and subjective and less transmissible . It is not easy to describe a scent or aroma ; they are an intimate perception that is hard to share . The reason for this expressive difficulty is probably due to the fact that taste and smell are the only two perceptions directly connected to the hippocampus , which is the deputy central storage department for information in the long-term memory . Their brand is indelible , and as such , can personally evoke and open scenarios for other memories and associated feelings .
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