What is your most vivid food memory?

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Mine first food memory is of "the butter nun". When I was in kindergarten, I went to a Catholic school. Why a Presbyterian was going to a Catholic school is a mystery of my mother's logic. The school had an excellent academic reputation and her main question was "Are they atheists? No? Fine."

Anyway, this was in California, and I had grown up in North Carolina. In 1969, oranges were still not an everyday kid food in rural North Carolina--they were very expensive. I had my first orange at that school and tried to bite it like an apple. They had to show me that you peeled it. It was good, but did not prepare me for the next surprise the dear sisters de Lestonnac had in store.

My best food memory came from the cafeteria at that school, where there was an enromous cheerful nun who ladled out the food, and where I had my first religious experience, involving a pat of butter.

Being a product of the modernist early 60s, mom used margarine. I had never tasted real butter. Then one day they served corn on the cob with this little pat of nectar on it for lunch. It was *real* butter and I had never tasted anything like it. I associate this with the cafeteria nun, who was amused by my reaction, and in my memory she was dubbed "the butter nun". That was the beginning of a slow ascent to foodie-dom. I was destined. The butter was a little square of heaven. I couldn't believe anything could be so good.

Even eclipsing when I got in trouble for asking "But how does Jesus fit in that little box?" at chapel, my biggest memory is still about the food.

How about you?

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 02:54 (twenty-one years ago)

No one has a vivid food memory? What gives?

― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 12 November 2004 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

All I can remember are food embarrassments, like (age 9) the first time I had caviar, thinking it was blackberry jam. Or, (age 32) the first time I had sushi and ate edame whole, thinking they were snap peas or something. These are still vivid, but not for the food aspect.

― Jaq (Jaq), Friday, 12 November 2004 03:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't think of anything like that. But it was a good story. I have certain memories connected with certain foods but they have little to do with the foods themselves, more with the rituals -- going to my father's house on Fridays, getting pizza and watching Knight Rider and the A-Team. That sort of thing.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 12 November 2004 05:25 (twenty-one years ago)

When I was a kid my dad owned a bar and cafe. In the daytime it was grand and warm and dust particles shown in the light that filtered in through enormous windows.

I was sitting in a two-person booth with my friend Katie. We had just made up after fighting over Hello Kitty toys. Our eyes were puffy and red from crying, but we were very pleased. A massive mound of rigatoni and marinara was heaped between the two of us. We covered it in parmesan and stuffed our little selves until we'd completely forgotten our quarrel and our Hello Kitty world.

― Josie, Friday, 12 November 2004 23:38 (twenty-one years ago)

My greatest food memory is my first Orange Julius. We had them in New York in 1979, when I was nine. They tasted like the most bizarre, foreign and most American food ever (that could be because I'd never had a bendy straw before, either). My brothers and I completely fell in love with them. I've never had one since that one holiday, but I've never forgotten them.

I also remember when I was about eight, I had my canine teeth removed under gas and was really sick. On the way home from the hospital my mother told me I could have anything to eat that I wanted. I wanted a home-made hamburger and home-made chips. I daydreamed about them the whole way home and how lovely they were going to be. I was so ill because of the gas that all I managed to keep down over the next two days was two rusks soaked in milk. A poor subsitute.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 14 November 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh I can relate to that. I used to *lurve* orange julius! Most of the chain has closed down, but there is still one left on Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, CA

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 14 November 2004 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

one of the few things that tempts me sometimes to have kids are the memories of learning to cook with my mom. We make our pies with a whole wheat crust (very simple, just flour oil water and salt) and I'm spoiled for it--processed flaky white crust do nothing for me, especially since I expect a pie crust to have that bit of salt in it. It was great fun to mix the ingredients together and roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper, and it was magic the way the edges sliced off so neatly when my mom drew the knife around the edge of the pie pan. And then I would get to eat the trimmings, it was the best!

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 15 November 2004 04:29 (twenty-one years ago)

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