Ekinacea-Take One Everyday

Those who love to eat also love to remember what and how they ate. Perhaps that is why I cherish old photos of food memories. For instance there is a photo of me from when I was 3 or 4- downing a big plate of typical childhood lunch food: some hot big pot dish consisting of minced meat, potatoes, peas.  Always the kid whose plate never had enough food, I have the expression of rush in my face- in need and hope of the second plate to come- if my mother lets me that is. I look at no one. I am one with food. As we pose for cameras often with others in a dinner table, we conceal the joy of what has happened. It was not the artificial hugging that should remain as a crumb of the past.  The back to the future device is the food. Hence- also it is writing - now the most disadvantaged- it lacks the visual register that already lacked the smell and the taste. Yet often - it speaks larger than the pictures as it taps into the feelings of the eater in ways unimagined. It is the thought exercise necessary for all that eating perhaps-(hence this blog) and the act of justification/prose of eating for the reasons for the love for the act. 

Early joys of food as a baby! The indication was joy was the throwing of the bottle to the nearest wall to get the attention of the responsible parties (mother or aunt) to feed me more. I also like these photos as they lack the attention to camera and the focus is on the baby food/drink of milk mixture.

The moment of eating is a culmination of feelings that dance between a mixture of joy and a distinct sense of temporality.  A bite allows one fluidity of past and present- something just like once before- but new. How often it is that the food brings back something of the old days into the present- hence also the eye closing and humming. Not just now the trendy sensations like umami (and the newest: fat perhaps) but something of a personal moment is bitten into and melts into the buds of taste and life. Whenever I have a bite of buraniye -childhood quick dish of Bosnian origin of baked potatoes with flour (they can also be squash and eggplant but I never liked those two- even though now love those veggies I still find their taste in Buraniye strange) less crisp than a potato chip as they are covered slightly with garlic yoghurt and on top of that melted butter with paprika, childhood it is again. The satisfaction is of joy of carbohydrates (whose overconsumption I hope to be the cause of my death- how great would it be if my cause of death was potato as opposed to cancer), but it is also the satisfaction of familiarity- taste buds grow everyday but they also love to remember.

A childhood memory of food with my mother.(the year should be around 1985- as evidenced by my mother's hair and our interesting choice of outfits. Attention to the lack there of focus/attention to the outside world

So to remember a moment, one takes a second from the rush of eating and takes a picture of the foods like me. It is also to remember that one needs to write what they ate. Food is after all a mnemonic device as its experience is the perfect neural marriage of smell and taste. Those who can successfully write and bring back with food are often called master-authors (Proust's claim to fame is partially due to his ability to bring back a childhood for us through the portal of madeleines - see also how there is neural theory behind this in this great book : Proust was Neuroscientist).

My eyes are on my mother serving food. It is amazing how much one lacks care for being captured when food is in the process of being served. This is a birthday party. A childhood birthday party = circassian chicken, patisserie bought salty Turkish goods, a cake (which I did not eat unless it was with chocolate at the time), my favorite of the whole ordeal is a borek spread of different fillings- hopefully made by my grandmother Bosnian style in the shape of a rose

Today when I utter that I want to write about food in addition to eating and loving food- I am told that it is cliche to do so. They may be right. (recent finding from foodista: "The prototypical food blogger is a married woman in her 30s - 40s living in the United States -[not married but the other two hold true] [another finding] - She most likely comes to the food blogging world with some relevant food, marketing, or writing background") There is so much food writing out there. That is not a symptom of a lot of people trying to make it in the broad industry of food but perhaps reflexive of the inherent desire to compliment eating with telling. After all, food-lovers love to talk about food even when eating. (another foodista finding: Almost all food bloggers judge their success based on the personal satisfaction they achieve. Very few judge this based on revenue earned.) Life for some like me could consist of snap shots of eating and the joy of being able to go back to those moments.

The cathartic act of indulging in understanding why certain tastes linger longer (for example: the taste of bbq'ed kidney, xian style spicy pulled noodles or a meal at Kyo Ya, buraniye, fusuli pasta with yoghurt, lakerda/turkish sashimi) is a job one can not escape. Passion for food is everlasting and the quest to understand that desire is an act of contemplation (at least for me), an existentialist effort of digesting time, food and life.

The passion for this piece of cake clearly superceeded the inherent desire to socialize hence the escape to a sofa top for a sweet experiment with self-hood (clearly fork skills not yet perfect but joy of eating is there from the get go)