Integration

A taste memory from Sicily

Some dishes transport us more than others. From the moment we savour them, they become a part of us. A taste that goes beyond presentation, eating and aftertaste, it returns back home with us. Travelling through time and place, years go by, decades even, and somehow certain flavours can still be recalled. Sitting at the tip of the tongue, yet packed with ambiance, they’re much harder to describe. Out of the blue, while travelling, we sit down to eat, recognise a familiar taste and find ourselves overcome with nostalgic memories. Or perhaps it’s walking past a bakery when a scent in the air teleports us somewhere we’ve already been, making us drool at the thought. Such is the power of a taste memory. Like a deeper emotion of an experience that satiated the soul differently.

Most memories are declarative, inclusive of facts and events that we can consciously describe. Much of taste memory is non-declarative, felt before it is understood, recognised before it can be named. When we eat, our sense of smell and the tongue’s taste buds identify taste by transferring information through cranial nerves, together helping to create the perception of flavour. The olfactory nerve transmits smell, the facial nerve carries taste from the front two-thirds of the tongue, the glossopharyngeal nerve from the back third of the tongue, and the vagus nerve which I detailed more about here, carries taste sensations through the back of the tongue, throat and epiglottis. The vagus nerve also plays a vital role in the gut-brain axis. These nerve activations integrate the olfactory memory in the brain’s insula containing the gustatory cortex or taste cortex, shaping and connecting tastes to emotions thanks to nearby neural pathways. The five basic gustatory tastes: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami (or savoury), coexist in the taste cortex. Some taste memories stay longer because they trigger important emotions. Survival instincts help us avoid poisons (bitter/sour) and seek energy (sweet/umami) and memories useful for future food choices. Pleasure-based eating also activates reward pathways — the same ones associated with dopamine (wanting), endorphins (liking) and serotonin (bridge between mood and food) triggered by for example music, exercise and social rewards. This is why we associate certain tastes to negative or positive emotions.

I carry taste memories from around the world that turned some trips from good to great.

One of them from Sicily, vividly remembered as if it happened yesterday. That weekend I had the pleasure of joining the olive harvest of a friend’s family. It was a sunrise morning drive through the countryside, crossing rural landscapes in a rickety little car. We arrived at a quaint farmhouse with a long front porch, outside furniture and a lawn. Almost like a movie set, their olive grove was in front, a sprawling green slope of olive trees set high and low. To each side, a small garden and a fruit orchard. The figs looked heavy on the branches, and the fico d’india (prickly pears) were ripe for picking. Limes and lemons were just starting to turn in colour.

We quickly rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in. Three generations of extended family had gathered. Uncles and aunts were there to help lay out tarps on the ground and small step ladders. The mother showed me how to use a hand rake to comb the branches for olives. We worked in pairs to shake the trees, also using various rods and telescopic tools to poke at branches higher up. It was so much fun seeing the olives neatly collect in the net beneath us. We continued like this for most of the morning, helping each other, bringing things, lifting and carrying crates.

At lunchtime, most of us gathered in the farmhouse kitchen. In one area, home-made pasta was being cut up and in another, big and small hands assisted with preparations. On the stove, a huge pot with glossy sugo di nonna (grandmother’s pasta sauce). It had been on a low and slow simmer all morning. Many steps had preceded this stage of slow-stirring and smoothening. When the eggplant had been fried and the pasta cooked, we returned outside.

Everyone there for harvest, and some extra friends and neighbours, joined for an al fresco pranzo (lunch) di Pasta alla Norma. That scene is forever etched on my retina. A sun-drenched olive grove in the background, this rustic, brown house with ~25 people sat on the porch around a long wooden table. The mother, standing up serving straight from the pot, steaming hot plates being handed amongst us. Some cats and dogs roaming around. The air filled up with multiple simultaneous conversations, arms energetically gesticulating, voices cracking up in giggles and the scent from our plates. Then, that first forkful after a long morning’s physical work under the heat.

I’ll say this, pasta is not my first choice. But that sauce. A clean aroma of each ingredient. There was succulent sweetness of sun-ripened tomatoes, umami-rich in flavour. Even the hearty colour was somehow redder than red. The fragrant basil and the depth of roasted garlic, balancing the acidity without crowding the earthiness of creamy aubergine. A somewhat ordinary sauce with extraordinary flavour. Rich but simple, intense but considered. Ricotta.

Their own olive oil.

Ciao.

After pasta, platters of powdery almond pastries brought from a favourite bakery came out alongside espresso and fruit plates.

Well-fed, we went back into the grove and continued picking olives. It was a warm afternoon, and harvesting was a bit itchy, a process of patience. The family patriarch, il nonno (grandfather) mostly sat in the shade, contemplating the land. A content man.

We were far from done with the labour by the end of the day, that long, relaxed pause per il mangiare (for eating) probably had something to do with it. When the sun eventually started to set, little birds came out and the sky turned a warm shade of peach with wafts of purple. Like the rolling of a curtain over a dreamscape environment.

To this day, I feel warm thinking about it, and so grateful for that entire experience. We eventually drove off in the dark, and I vowed to try and recreate the beautiful dish we had for lunch.

Still over here trying.

Indeed, I have found myself wondering if the taste became greater over time, and hindsight improved those elusive flavours.

What I do know, is that this particular taste memory wasn’t just made with ingredients that ended up on my plate. It was made between people, through tradition and rituals in their home. It was made through intense physical work, the warm weather and the jovial mood of the day. A memory that has tempo, a view, sounds, scents, togetherness, the warm Sicilian climate, how we sat facing each other in nature, and everyone’s enthusiastic participation.

Beyond a meal. Far less about what was eaten than about where, how, and with whom.

I will return to taste memories in future newsletters, sporadically sharing some of those truly savoured moments. Sometimes (if tasty!) I may even share my own attempt at recipe recreation of a taste memory.