Flash Back Scene, Ratatouille
Relationships form with and around food. A specific memory can stem from a meal, placing the individual in a position to reminisce. The ability to re-experience the past when eating is stimulated by five sensorial features; taste, scent, sound, texture and visual combinations heighten the experience attached to food. Past experiences link food with either a negative connotation or positive response. Considering a meal that has been cooked and served in the diner. The association of food and memory has the potential to impact future experiences of the specific sensory or ingredient within a particular meal. An example from the movie Ratatouille, the critic tastes a course from the restaurant and is transported back to his youth, tasting his mother’s cooking in his childhood home. The individual’s experience is euphoric, simply because of his past experience of the signature dish. 1 It is inadequate to solely praise the delicious taste of food. The potential connection to past experience may mean the food is observed impartially. Understanding that taste buds renew and memories fade. Generated by the five senses, it is incredible to see the power held within eating. In regard to an individual returning to a past memory through a dining experience.
- Arnhem Symphonic Winds. Ratatouille. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amstel Classics, 1995. ↩
Ratatouille is one of my favourite films! I’ve always thought the moment when the critic tastes a transformed childhood favourite was so powerful. It demonstrated everything food can be, beyond a combination of ingredients and heat. You have so eloquently described how important the relationship between food and memory can be, and I now regard things like the McDonald’s soft serve as physical manifestation of my childhood. Just like you’ve written in your blog post, I can’t eat the cheap ice cream again without thinking of many afternoons spent as a child with my sister, thinking that a soft serve was the most delicious thing in the word.
This is a wonderful post Brianna, topped off with a childhood throwback to the only film I have ever watched which can convince me Rats are cute!
After reading your blog, I find it raises an interesting paradox: if our experience of food is inherently personal, why is the food review industry so popular and profitable? To go off your argument, it seems absurd to avidly follow the advice of someone whose conclusions are the product of distinct memories and circumstances.
I agree with your observation about the influence of past memory on dining experience, but I think it is a conclusion most of us begrudgingly admit. Although we all deep-down understand how taste is subjective, we can doubt the validity of our own perspective when faced with the bombardment of opinions our hyper-connected world now entails. As Solomon Asch’s social conformity experiments demonstrate, the power of the crowd in warping our eventual experience is strong.
Whilst Anton Ego might have fond memories of his mother’s Ratatouille, you better hope he isn’t dining in a world obsessed with meat.