Tuesday

Tastes like my childhood...

Earlier this evening a friend and I stopped by Russ & Daughters to pick up some caviar cream cheese. Something I missed deeply while I was living in Long Island. She happened to also order some pickled herring fillets in cream sauce. I asked for a bite and upon eating it, I literally exclaimed "This tastes like my childhood!" I'm sure I've blogged about sense memory before, but this experience made me think about what other flavors defined my childhood. The first to come up was chopped chicken liver. Guess those two tastes make it pretty clear that I was raised a New York Jew. Vanilla chocolate chip Italian ices are another one, and I guess that's about growing up on Staten Island (the origin of Ralph's Ices). This whole thought process made me wonder about other people's childhood food memories. I asked my house guest come roommate and her response was gingersnap cookies, her grandmother always had them around. My paternal grandmother always had coolwhip. My maternal grandmother always had tunafish salad, but it rarely reminds me of her. What flavors bring you back to being a little kid?