We are all concerned with food, I think. We need it to survive.
Our physical nourishment. More than just our bread and water.
Since I mentioned bread and water, we wouldn’t last too long, if that is all we ate. It would be the lack of vitamins A, B, C, and D that would kill us. A human would only be able to live for about six months under those conditions. About 2 to 3 months in, we’d begin experiencing problems in the way of scurvy from a lack of vitamin C, among other things.
No. We need other nutrients from the very beginning of our lives, of course. To start out, our mother’s milk was all we required. These days, health experts believe breast milk is the best choice for our baby-selves — nutritionally speaking. They say breastfed babies have fewer infections and hospitalizations than formula-fed infants. Our good mothers pass antibodies and other germ-fighting factors to us babies during feeding time. It strengthens the immune system. What a wonder.
But. We probably have no memory of consuming anything at that point in our lives. Our memories begin from the age of 3 onwards. Some of us can remember a few things a little earlier. It happens. Yet again, those experts chime in and suggest memories of early childhood start to be lost rapidly from around the age of 7.
I believe it too. My childhood memories are spotty. But my first one came right on my third birthday, when they took my grandmother away from my birthday party to the hospital. She didn’t say goodbye to me or any of us kids as they helped her out the front door. She died in that hospital about a week later.
I drifted from talking about food to thinking about memory. But they seem to go hand in hand for me. A lot of my memories circulate around food. Apparently, I’m not alone. Those scientists tell us that the sense of smell is the one most connected to memory, and the sense of taste comes close in behind at second.
So, when we eat, these two senses are already top-tier functions in the brain. And when those senses are engaged, we are more likely to remember those circumstances around us. But they also say the memories can be either good or bad. I believe this is true too. At least, for me.
Anyway, I was thinking this morning of eating bologna sandwiches, which I did as a kid. A lot. My mom fixed breakfast for us every morning — eggs and bologna with toast. In the evenings, we’d always, always have a sit-down dinner. But lunch? We ate at the cafeteria while we were in school. And during the summer, we were mostly on our own. Bologna on white bread.
And so. It was on this date, September 10, 1951, that the Swanson Company sold its first TV Dinner. And the craze began. That’s what started all of this thinking — Salisbury Steak, frozen solid.
At any rate, I can’t ever remember eating a TV dinner. I know we never had them when I was growing up. Maybe the older kids got to try them once, and the dinners were vetoed. I don’t know. But I’ve never had one. I wonder what I’m missing.
Regardless, I am thankful for all the foods. It is one of my favorite things in life. And so is my memory. May they both be abundant for us all.
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Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.
— Bob Dylan
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I’ve always been fascinated by memory and dreams because they are both completely our own. No one else has the same memories. No one has the same dreams.
— Lois Lowry
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Food is our common ground, a universal experience.
— S James Beard
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What we eat. What we remember.
