The sweetness of sauce, the saltiness of well-made broth, and a sea of umami flavors engulf you as you walk through a restaurant, transporting you back in time into your childhood home’s kitchen. The beautiful scene of a loving caretaker feeding or cooking you your favorite dish is delicately illustrated by the mix of smells, the familiar taste on your tongue, or the atmosphere of the restaurant. The perfect balance of flavors, ambience, and nostalgia make a 5-star review of the restaurant all the more common. To satisfy customers and food critics alike, a good dish doesn’t just need the perfect balance of different taste, but a hint of nostalgia as well.
Smell and taste are one of the most powerful keys to unlocking the doorway to forgotten memories. This is known as the Proust Effect or Proust Phenomenon, named after the French novelist Marcel Proust who was the first person to describe such a feeling. This term describes how memories are involuntarily triggered by the senses, particularly smell. This effect can extend to various different aspects of our life and specifically surrounds the first ten years of childhood: the floral scent of your mom’s shampoo, the strong chemical smell of your favorite plastic toy as a child, or even the unique, unreplicatable smell of your childhood bedroom.
Research shows that when exposed to familiar smells which trigger the olfactory sense, there is a greater activation of the hippocampus and the amygdala in the brain. This makes perfect sense, as the hippocampus is important for memory, and the amygdala processes memories and associated emotions. Therefore, the reaction from smell means that olfactory triggers create a greater emotional response than other senses. Specifically, scent-evoked nostalgia is found to have created a more positive effect on the person and boosted their self esteem among other positive things. And because the flavor of food is determined by the combination of taste and smell, the positive effects of scent-evoked nostalgia can be triggered by food.
Nostalgia, as a term, covers a wide range of emotions and is highly dependent on the individual; it can trigger anger and sadness, but at the same time, comfort and happiness. But this seemingly broad term serves an important purpose, and that is to help our past guide our future. By recalling memories, it triggers a sense of identity by reminding us of our self growth which helps us define who we are today and who we want to be in the future. Therefore, nostalgia is considered a social emotion which helps us connect with others and relate to them.
However, food and memory have other relationships as well. Food is an essential part of our survival, meaning that peoples’ love for food stems all the way from our primal instincts, therefore people are more likely to form memories surrounding food. From early ages, we start to associate food with soothingness and social interactions, and the positive emotions and effects on our neurotransmitters evoked by food contribute to our love for it as we grow. This is also why people offer food as gifts, or cook for our loved ones. The relationship between food and memory extends deeper than just nostalgia; it is believed by some that “we eat with our minds as much as we eat with our stomachs”, and this is further supported by an experiment conducted in which people with severe amnesia were offered three sets of the same meal with a 10-30 minute gap between, introducing it as “Here’s lunch”. The results show a small difference of the individual’s “fullness” level before and after their next meal, and one individual even enthusiastically accepted the three meals offered on most trials. Another individual had also announced 20 minutes after eating his third meal that he was going to “go for a walk and get a good meal.” and when asked what he wanted to eat, he named the exact food that he had just eaten. This creative experiment thus displays a close linkage between memory and food intake.
Our past is not something that dictates our present or future. However ,our memories of the past are capable of shaping our present and future identity. Nostalgia, a confusing yet bittersweet emotion, is a powerful tool to dive into our memories, and–luckily for us–food is an easy pathway to it. The positive emotions caused by food-evoked nostalgia finds its way into our everyday lives, and because of that, we each have our own ‘comfort food’ and ‘favorite food’. Although the flavors of food play a role in what dish we exactly like, nostalgia plays a significant role in determining our preference for flavors in the first place. The taste of nostalgia is a flavor that no other can compare to.