When you think about the perfect cooks in your life, one of the first people who might pop into your mind is your Nonna. You spent days watching her in the kitchen, whipping up vintage snacks no one makes, and creating holiday feasts that could feed an army. But try as you might. You cannot replicate your grandma’s successes in the kitchen.
There needs to be a better English translation for the Persian term dastpokht. It translates to “hand cooking”; however, its meaning is more akin to “style of cooking” or “mastery of cooking.” The term is, by definition, person-specific, and it intends that the food created by the individual’s hands is unique by extension of their being.
Food memories feel nostalgic because there is all this context of when you were preparing or eating this food, so the food becomes almost symbolic of other meanings. A lot of our memories as children are not so much the apple pie, for example, but the whole experience of being a family and being nourished, and that acquires a lot of symbolism apart from the sensory quality.
This is to say that every time I eat my grandmother’s cooking, my tastebuds act as a sort of time machine for my subconscious, transporting me back to all those times she let me eat a jar of Nutella and go wild on the drum kit she bought me.
The Science Behind: A Link Between Food And Memory Lane
Interestingly, this link between food and memory stems from a not-so-positive foundation; it is part of a human survival tactic known as conditioned taste aversion. According to a 2018 study conducted on rats by Kathleen C. Chambers, a psychology professor, Conditioned taste aversion is a learned association between an illness and the taste of a specific food such that the food is contemplated to be the reason for the illness. That means the exact mechanism that incites nostalgia for my grandma’s cooking is the same one that tells my brain to remember when and why to avoid certain foods that could make me sick.
But that is not all. Also, according to PopSugar, a 2014 study on mice found that taste is associated with memories of being in a location where something good or bad might have happened. This means that eating certain foods can set off specific triggers in the brain that instill a sense of calm or fear, depending on what we associate that food with.
To that end, Hadley Bergstrom, an assistant professor of psychology at Vassar, shared that nostalgia instigated by a particular type of sauce or food is reinforced every time you eat said food or flavoring, which means that my grandmother has, for nearly 30 years, been slowly using her recipes to hypnotize my taste buds like a snake charmer. And while all of that should be enough to lead me to question whether or not my grandmother’s cooking is as good as I have always believed it to be, well, the power of those food memories is too strong to be wavered by objectivity.
The Same Meal, As If Your Grandma Made It
Would you believe if I say this article has a solution for all of you who miss Grandma’s cooking? Or maybe you want to impress her with a meal as good as hers?
Here’s what you could do! Grab Eleanor Gaccetta’s Generation Of Good Food.
This book is a compilation of recipes that span six generations. The book is a collection of straightforward recipes and heartfelt stories of Italian life that brought families together around the table. This book will raise your interest whether you are a novice in the kitchen, a home cook, or a professionally trained cook. The cookbook is a compilation of nearly 200 recipes, including main dishes, bread, cakes, pies, cookies, and candy. Would you like to cook pasta dishes, bake sweet Easter bread, a Chiffon cake, lemon ricotta cookies, or make Tiger butter fudge? These and many more recipes are included. Just glancing through the table of contents will urge you to cook, bake and eat. Further, Ellie’s book was a labor of love that consumed her time during the pandemic lockdown. It incorporates recipes, stories, and anecdotes from six generations of her Italian family. It is a book for the kitchen novice and seasoned cook and baker.
Alex Writes 