In a party, we often hear people saying this dish reminds me of my mother’s so and so recipe. Yes, like many other events, taste is also saved in our brain as a memory. I spent most of my childhood days in central India. So I can say that most of my first tastes have been basically north Indian. When I see a cup of shrikhand or dhokla in the Indian Restaurant or fresh singada in the Indian grocery shop, I would get excited and my husband won’t even know why, because he being a typical South Indian didn’t even hear those names before.
This summer our neighbor brought back mangoes from India. They shared a few with us. We do get mangoes here but these were not just any mangoes. These were Dusheri mangoes. As always, I got excited and asked my husband, ‘These are the variety I told you about. Do you remember?’ and as always he didn’t remember. I even told my mother, ‘See I am getting Dusheri mangoes in Kuwait!’. I haven’t even seen them since I was 10 years old. That would be more than 15years ago. Now these Dusheri mangoes are small and have to be eaten in a special way. You shouldn’t cut the mangoes. That will not bring out the taste. One has to squeeze the mango nicely and then cut open a small portion of the top and sip on the juice. The very next day the mangoes were ripe and ready to eat. As I squeezed the pulp and sipped the mango, I was teleported to my childhood days. I was excited like a kid who gets to taste mangoes for the first time this summer. It definitely didn’t stop there. I taught my kid and he enjoyed it too. It is amazing how an old childhood taste can make your day even after 15 years.I guess that is how memories work.
This summer our neighbor brought back mangoes from India. They shared a few with us. We do get mangoes here but these were not just any mangoes. These were Dusheri mangoes. As always, I got excited and asked my husband, ‘These are the variety I told you about. Do you remember?’ and as always he didn’t remember. I even told my mother, ‘See I am getting Dusheri mangoes in Kuwait!’. I haven’t even seen them since I was 10 years old. That would be more than 15years ago. Now these Dusheri mangoes are small and have to be eaten in a special way. You shouldn’t cut the mangoes. That will not bring out the taste. One has to squeeze the mango nicely and then cut open a small portion of the top and sip on the juice. The very next day the mangoes were ripe and ready to eat. As I squeezed the pulp and sipped the mango, I was teleported to my childhood days. I was excited like a kid who gets to taste mangoes for the first time this summer. It definitely didn’t stop there. I taught my kid and he enjoyed it too. It is amazing how an old childhood taste can make your day even after 15 years.I guess that is how memories work.
4 comments:
nice read and yes memories get refreshed by such simple but poignant moments !
Woww!! Whatte coincidence!! I was just telling the misses 2 days back about the wonders of human beings having a keen sense/memory of taste!!! It's one of the sensory pleasures that cannot be recorded and replayed artificially.. But still, our brain can store taste memories over decades and retrieve them in a jiffy at the slightest trigger.. (For that matter, smell too)..
Now, can Oracle/SAP do that?!
And the method of eating mangoes - that's exactly the way I prefer too!! Messy, but joyous :)
For me, it would take a 'kalaan fry' from the streets of Coimbatore get the same effect :)
If you seriously want to be a writer, you should join the fantastic professional writing site Writewords. www.writewords.org.uk it's a very good site where you will learn to be a great writer.
Post a Comment