Holiday Meals and Memories

"In our family, we spend more time and effort planning our holiday food than any other aspect of the season. Not only do we love to eat, but we also carefully curate our sense of home and family by sharing food. And during our holiday meals, we will be serving memories with a side of nostalgia. Food is memory Are there particular foods that you simply must have during the holidays?"

"Over the years, our family has developed a set of food traditions. These traditions combine the foods that both my wife and I loved when we were young. We've also created some of our own holiday traditions by finding new things to eat and enjoy during the holiday season. Most families have these traditions. And mixing things up can be risky. For example, I don't dare change my aunt's sweet potato casserole. And someone must create the exact right version of the chocolate mousse."

"When we break bread together, we remember together. We remember the times when we've had these foods before. We remember the meals that were perfect, and laugh about the occasional kitchen failures. A taste can evoke nostalgia Frequently, smells and tastes evoke particular memories and bring to mind periods of time - a sense of nostalgia. Many different aspects of a current experience can bring memories to mind."

Families commonly invest significant time planning holiday food to curate a sense of home and belonging. Holiday food traditions blend inherited favorites and newly adopted dishes, and many recipes are reproduced exactly to meet expectations. Shared meals act as occasions for collective remembering by binding sensory elements of events into cohesive memories. Smells and tastes function as especially potent memory cues that readily evoke past periods of life and strong nostalgia. Other stimuli such as music or returning to familiar places can also trigger memories, but food-related sensory cues hold unique power in holiday contexts.

Read at Psychology Today