Food Nostalgia

February 12, 2015

Food Nostalgia

Do you have memories of those lovely meals shares warm from the oven, perfectly crisp, gooey to the right, licking your hands, dipping your fingers, tasting your nails, the hot but hot enough, the home cooked, or the late night meals. The Maggies of late night on hungry tummies. The munching of chips while hiding in the closet. The sweet, and sour, and the salty. The temptations of the world.

The grandmom delicacies, the box full of best foods, favourite sweet shops, the gol gappe wala, the kulfi wala, the Mithai wala, the bread wala, the Maggie wala, the chai wala, the wada pav wala, the chaat wala, all the khane wala.

The candles blown, the cakes cut, the cakes smashed, the creamy facial, the pineapple flavor, the Black Forest, the chocolate flavor... All those cakes every year!!

Those memories of a lovely food eaten over a hungry stomach. Why any food becomes tastier on an empty stomach for a person who can't eat that.

The food you get to relish at weddings, when mom is not watching. The most orangey cold drink or the coldest ice cream. The desserts before main course. The chaat before soup. The coke before juices. That kind of a food when you wait for guests to leave so you can eat the left over specialities served to them by mom. To be given the extra piece being the youngest or the bestest or the favourite. That kind of a food.

The food cooked by a mother, by a wife, by a sister, by a father, by a grand parent, by a friend, by mother in law, by husband, by you sometimes. The family meals, with the favourite foods shared by all. How is it that probability of siblings liking same foods, is higher than any other combination. You don't match so much with your parents as much as siblings. I think moms find it convenient to make foods liked by all so siblings end up liking similar things. Even husband wives settle on similar foods. Like anoop and me settle on pizza and Italian generally. Ghar Ka khana too is mostly Punjabi.

Those memories of foods shared. To associate your friends and family with the food items you like together or fought over.

The foods eaten when you were really hungry after a busy day, on a sick stomach, after a good swim, after a lovely conversation, after love making, after sleep, after a fast, after reaching destination. Those memories of and the aftertaste.

The food smells, of just baked in the oven room, of hot Daal in the kitchen, of burnt pizza, of frying pakoda, of tandoori, of barbecue, of a potpourri, of masala mixing.

The food and the bites, the play and the foreplay, the biggest bite, the flying bite, the best bite, the last bite, the fear of a bite, the memories of fingers bitten!! Life is in the bites!