I’m not sure if it’s because I am a creature of habit or because of my peanut allergy, but one thing about me is my food palette is narrow.
I have always been a picky eater; I was the teenager at the restaurant that ordered chicken fingers and I am the young adult at the coffee shop that orders a hot chocolate.
While my willingness to try new food has expanded slightly throughout my adolescence, my rather selective tongue has subconsciously caused me to go through cycles where I very much eat and drink the same thing day-in and day-out.
Because of these cyclic eating-patterns that I find myself in, I have associated periods of time/memories to certain foods or beverages. That means that when I eat a food that I had previously fixated on, I actually have flashbacks to the time in my life when I only ate that food.
So now, without further ado, here are some of my most memory-inducing snacks and drinks:
- Yoplait Light key lime pie yogurt with Rold Gold pretzel rods
This is my earliest food combo that brings up any sort of reaction or memory. I ate this snack combo every single day of elementary school – and was made fun of for my dipping of pretzel into key lime yogurt for equally as long.
I can literally feel myself sitting at the long, brown cafeteria tables as I take each bite. I can see the tiny holes in the wall that I sat next to every year because I sat at the very end of the peanut-free table for all five years of elementary school.
I can hear the lunch monitors reminding me to sit down on my bottom, since I was so small and could rarely hear what kids at the other end of the table were saying, so I would prop myself up on my legs in my chair to get closer to whatever conversation was happening without me.
While I opt for more filling yogurts now, sometimes I will pick up one or two little key lime yogurts when I am home just to remind myself of how sweet (and salty) this little food combo is for me.
- A jelly sandwich
Guys, stay with me here.
As a peanut-allergy kid (I cannot believe I have referenced my allergy twice in this article already), I obviously could not indulge in the typical PB&J like other kids.
Since I did not like lunch meat in my early years, and my mom had to give me something to (figuratively) beef-up my lunch, we landed on jelly sandwiches.
That’s right. Smucker’s grape jelly spread between two pieces of untoasted wheat bread.
It was Coachella 2016, okay? It was the vibe at the time. I loved it. I ate it.
And, more importantly, I felt like I fit in with the other kids around me who were eating their own sandwiches. Allergies were a weird tool for exclusion and isolation in elementary school, so anything that could help alleviate my feelings of “otherness” in my developmental years was helpful.
- Cantaloupe and oreos
Weird weird weird mix here…I know. No, I did not intentionally eat cantaloupe and Oreos with each other. However, when I was in middle school, I still very much followed the routine that we had at my house where we had to eat all of our fruits and vegetables before eating dessert (so that we wouldn’t fill up on sweets).
Because of this, I would go through each part of my lunch: a turkey sandwich (upgrade!), my bag of strawberries and blueberries, a bag of Lays Baked BBQ chips and then I was left with my cantaloupe and Oreos.
Now, if I had followed the rule in my house correctly, the fruit would have to come first. However, I realized (in my professional Oreo-eating experience), that I would frequently get the chocolate cookie caught in my teeth (or worse, my braces) and walk around with dark food in the crevices of my mouth for the rest of the day.
So, I devised the most intelligent plan known to any twelve-year-old: eat the cantaloupe last as a way to clean out my teeth.
After eating both Oreos, I would take each slice of cantaloupe and bite into it at different points in my mouth. If the bite left the remaining part of the fruit clean, then there was no cookie in my teeth. If I took a bite and there were chocolate remnants left on the slice, then I knew that was an area that I would have to continue biting into until I had a clean bite.
Sooooo weird…but it worked.
So this combo brings me back to the round tables of my middle school and my biggest concern at that time: Oreo in my teeth!
- Arnold Palmer in the skinny can with two pieces of untoasted cinnamon swirl bread.
This was my go-to mid-day snack when I was doing online school my junior and (half of) my senior year of high school. Zoom classes were weird, the lack of social interaction was rough and my mental, physical and emotional health was definitely not at a high point.
This combination does not bring up the happiest memory for me – I am brought back to my bedroom, sitting at my desk for hours, staring at a screen with faces that I once interacted with in person, now just reduced to pale-colored pixels in their own poorly-lit rooms.
With only two minutes in between Zoom classes, I never had time to toast my cinnamon toast – hence why I always ate it untoasted.
While I loved this food and drink mix at the time, I look back on these items together and all I can picture is a sad, gray existence.
Dramatic…I know. But what can I say? I told you food and drinks unlock key memories for me!
- A slice of cheese pizza with fries, barbecue sauce and a cup of Brisk half-and-half
Ah, my go-to Hickey meal.
Since attending St Bonaventure, if there is one thing about me, it’s that I am going to pick up a slice of pizza at the Hickey.
Freshman year was a whirlwind for me, but one of the weirdest (and most delicious) things to come out of that year was my fries and BBQ sauce obsession.
A couple friends of mine started dipping their fries in BBQ sauce instead of ketchup, and while I definitely judged from afar at first, I eventually was convinced to try the combo – and my life has never been the same since.
Clearly, I am also someone who enjoys a good iced tea drink, so free Brisk half-and-half at my disposal is…dangerous, to say the least.
The best part of this mix is that it is so reliable. No matter what time of day, no matter who I am with and no matter how much time I have, I know I can walk into the Hickey and grab a slice of cheese pizza, some fries and BBQ and a cold Brisk half-and-half.
And with every bite, I can picture our table, in the corner by the door, as scared freshmen, excited sophomores, stressed juniors and nostalgic seniors.
Food is a wonderful thing. It fills your stomach and fuels your body.
But even more so, food, for me, ignites my memories.
Food reminds me of my best times and my low moments, but regardless, it only takes one bite and a small sip to transport me back months, years, or even a decade, which is such a special experience for anyone.