I am currently reading a book by Kat Robinson, a prominent Arkansas food writer, and this one just happens to be packed with lots of her personal nostalgia and food memories. It got me thinking about my own food memories, and I realized that mine are a bit scattered under my preconception about their lack of specialness.
I grew up an only child in a home with two full-time working parents, so while there was food it was not necessarily prepared in some sort of nostalgia inspiring way. In other words, my parents didn’t really have a lot of recipes or food customs that were passed down to me; or did they? I think I have actually overlooked a lot of the culinary history that happened in my home because I just didn’t think of it as significant; kind of like how I grew up thinking San Antonio was a very small and boring town (It’s actually the 6th largest in the USA).
I think this is a case of getting caught up in what the tyranny of exceptionalism told me was worthy of being a nostalgic food memory, instead of what my memories actually are. So in an effort to enjoy my own long history with food, and to uncover some of my own memories, I’ve been looking back on my childhood for my earliest food-related memories.
Today, I came across this photo. I am not sure how old I am in this photo, but that cat, Carol, lived for over 20 years so she is no help narrowing it down. I am eating a root beer float in that picture. Root beer floats in my house growing up were made using A&W root beer and Bluebell French Vanilla ice cream. Specifically, those two ingredients were required. It may sound simple, but it had to be those two specific ingredients for it to be an acceptable root bear float in our house.
Just writing out the ingredients now brought up the very physical memory of the creamy fizziness I experienced eating/drinking one of those on that couch with that cat. My mind is instantly filled with those textures, and even the sound the root beer makes when you first drop the ice cream in. I haven’t had a root beer float at my parents house in over 30 years, and instantly the thought of it takes me back to that moment. That’s the power of food memories to me.
I’m guessing this is how it is for most people when it comes to food memories. We remember the specifics, but they don’t seem significant because that’s just how it was. The commonness of a recipe or food throughout or memory often makes it seem less interesting or noteworthy.
I want to keep this blog balanced between farming and cooking, so I think I’m going to dip into my own food nostalgia and memories to see what I can find there to share. Sharing one of the simplest and oldest recipes I could remember seemed like a good place to start.
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