Ask HN: Does food evoke memory, or do you just think it does

2 points by bryanrasmussen 2 years ago

I was just reading something about the movie Ratatouille and how food evokes memory, and I sort of had a knee jerk what a load of hooey moment, because frankly even back when I had a phenomenal memory food has never done anything to evoke it the way it is represented in that movie and really all popular culture, as in tasting something or smelling something and suddenly you are wafted back to your youth and your mother's kitchen etc.

This idea of course is probably related to Proust and À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) and its early scene of memory being sparked by a Madeleine. So I think the idea is pretty wide spread among people that food and smell works this way with memory, but does it really or do people just believe it does without really experiencing it?

For what it's worth the closest I've ever gotten with this is eating Camembert, sometimes when I have Camembert I think of the first times I had it in a small cafe in the black forest in Germany, but I don't have this memory from the taste, I have it because I look at the Camembert and I think that time, the taste does nothing for my memory (although perhaps if I tasted it blindfolded, I might think that is camembert I remember the first time I had that in Germany)

IceMetalPunk 2 years ago

It entirely depends on what memories you associate with the foods in the first place. For instance, most food doesn't evoke any memories for me, but I can't even look at a black-and-white cookie without remembering the time one gave me food poisoning and the pain of that experience.

  • PaulHoule 2 years ago

    Animals (like you) form very strong memories from a single case of eating bad food.

    When my son and I had gotten really sick of those Geico ads we fantasized about setting up a table manned by somebody in a gecko suit passing out Geico-branded candy bars that would make people puke.

    • IceMetalPunk 2 years ago

      Yep. Evolution was like, "Jeff ate a bad berry and he died. That's why Jeff is not your father. Make sure you stay the fuck away from any food that makes you sick; don't be like Jeff." It took me over a decade to even be able to eat another black-and-white cookie again.

      And it's not even just food, it's any painful experience. Pain is a great motivator for avoidance. When I was about 11, I had myringotomy tubes implanted in my eardrums -- a common procedure to help drain fluid in kids with chronic infections or, in my case, bad allergies. Thing is, when those tubes are in your ears, there's no barrier between your outer and inner ear, so you cannot get your ears wet. I was given custom-made ear plugs so I could still go in the pool, but they weren't as tightly sealed as they could have been, and chlorinated pool water would still leak in sometimes... fun fact: if you think chlorine burns your eyes, imagine how it feels dripping into your inner ear and down your eustachian tubes. During that time, I would get constant inner ear infections from pool water, and I'm talking the "extremely painful, pus-pouring, pressure-building, 'someone is stabbing my ears'" level of infections.

      I had the tubes surgically removed after I think about 2 years, and never had another ear infection after that, but it took me at least 5 years before I could put my head underwater without a conditioned, reflexive tensing and jerking of the neck trying to prevent it from happening.

ohiovr 2 years ago

Food doesn't seem to evoke memory but smell definitely does for me.

tomcam 2 years ago

For me it is simply therapy. Unfortunately, it is an enormously effective therapy, and I am enormously overweight. It never really evokes any kind of memories for me.

joshxyz 2 years ago

god damn OP what are we smoking in here, haha.

but ye food for me evokes significant memories, not just day to day memories. i guess significance and sentimental value is a factor.