Feasting is also closely related to memory. We eat certain things in a particular way in order to remember who we are. Why else would you eat grits in Madison, New Jersey?
In Hue, Vietnam, we had savory rice pancakes with crumbled shrimp and pork rinds. I've still never had a version as good.
When I lived in Greece and off the coast of Italy, I enjoyed a branzino dish so much that I created my own version.
One of the big things I miss about New York is not my friends so much; it's Shake Shack, the burger place. I miss Shake Shack.
The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. (pg. 326, The Pleasures of Eating)
Tasting a dish should be memorable If nothing remains in the memory of a single guest, then I have made a mistake.
The hardest part of anything is making a dish consistently great - you order it seven years later, if it's still on the menu, and it's still as good as what you remember.
The secret of food lies in memory - of thinking and then knowing what the taste of cinnamon or steak is.
I love inventive food, but I want the classic dishes to taste like how I remember them. I get a little bummed out when there is too much fancy stuff going on and it doesn't resemble the original dish at all.
When I was a kid, I had asthma, so I would have to take cod liver oil all the time. So anything fishy that reminds me of that taste, I can't eat. I love Chilean sea bass because I don't taste it there. But salmon? No, no, no.
I was once married to a woman who could eat anything and tell you what was in it: the most complicated recipes. Her memory of taste - now that's what I call memory!
I realized very early the power of food to evoke memory, to bring people together, to transport you to other places, and I wanted to be a part of that.
Part of what makes a great chef is the ability to adapt, cook, and to taste. A great chef will use all their food knowledge, food memories, and senses to work with each ingredient and apply themselves to the dish they are creating.
Whenever I'm in Des Moines, I always make a trip to Manhattan Deli for a sandwich. I spent a lot of time there when I was going to college at Drake, so it's usually my one 'go-to' food stop when I'm in town.
It's like this - because I travel so much, I crave certain foods or certain things, like from certain places that I've been.
When I was younger, I read all the great food memoirs, by M.F.K. Fisher and Laurie Colwin and Julia Child and Nicolas Freeling and Ruth Reichl, and felt flooded with a sense of comfort and safety.
My last meal on Earth? The obvious answer is a plate of my mother's scrambled eggs.
My first memory is being taken for Indian food at the Cookham Tandoori on the High Street - I remember the poppadoms, the onions, the chicken tikka.
Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.
We have fans who bake cookies for the team or they make cupcakes or muffins and stuff like that. And then they always ask us if we enjoyed it and how it tasted. I'm like, 'That was so long ago. I don't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning!'
Tuna pie has been a comfort food for me. Back in high school, when I was still studying at ABS-CBN's Distance Learning Center, I remember buying it every day from the Jollibee kiosk in our building.
You will find that your taste buds have a memory of about 3 weeks.
Fried twinkies? Paris nodded. Only once, I've never forgotten the experience. It's like heaven in your mouth, man.
I’m trying to think of the last time I had onions.
Brioches are a light, pale yellow, faintly sweet kind of muffin with a characteristic blob on top, rather like a mushroom just pushing crookedly through the ground. Once eaten in Paris, they never taste as good anywhere else.
