Memory Lane

How odd the way the memory works. I just read a review of the new Helen Mirren movie, The Hundred-Foot Journey, in which the reviewer says that the food preparation and the eating thereof was almost sensual, the tastes and aromas escaping through the screen to the moviegoers. That led me to my remembrance of things past, just as I remembered it from Proust’s novel of that name, that one can be carrying on with the day’s affairs, when suddenly an aroma or a taste will assail him and take him back to a time in his past. He has no choice but to go back. That made me think about all the tastes and smells of my youth. Foods my mother prepared for me: melted American cheese over crackers, creamed tuna on Chinese noodles, bread pudding, lemon meringue pie, milk toast whenever I got sick. My mouth can still taste that dish: two slices of toast in a shallow bowl, generous butter, a bit of pepper, then warm milk poured over all. It almost made getting sick worth it. That takes me to the tastes and aromas of my sick childhood—the Vicks Vaporub on the chest, the mentholated steam enveloping me in the sheet tents she would put up over my bed, the hateful spoonful of Castor Oil, the invariable and delightful spoonful of Castoria. It didn’t seem to matter if I was constipated or not; I still got the Castoria. On to other tastes from my youth. The candy bar I most remember is the Powerhouse bar, chocolate-covered white nougat, huge in my memory, probably twice as big as candy bars today. And the 7-Up bar with its seven different ingredients encased in chocolate—coconut, caramel, buttercream, mint, orange, nougat, and always the best saved for last, the Brazil nut. The Mascot Theater where we’d meet to see the Saturday double feature, and the treats we’d buy—an orange or raspberry or grape pushup, maybe a fudgsicle, a box of popcorn (or if I couldn’t afford popcorn, then a one-cent box of old maids). Tastes from later in my life, the unmistakable pizza burger from Dean’s Drive-in, the hot hot chili after a high school hayride, the stuffed peppers or pigs-in-the-blanket. If you ever want to take a memory tour of your youth, just think about all the tastes and smells from back then. You’ll be transported immediately.