HT: What drew you to it? (or them) – Can you recall how it was presented?
I often cook things that I enjoyed making as a child, not necessarily just because I want to eat them now, but because I can share them with others. It is the memory of the process itself and who I made them with that creates a fond nostalgia for that moment past. (Favourite recipes might be Brighton Pasty, a family recipe, which I made with grandma, Scampi Portokali, a Cypriot dish favoured by my mum, or homemade limeade which reminds me of Sri Lanka).
Do you cook certain dishes or enjoy particular foods because they have special meaning for you? -Could you give an example and describe its meaning for you?
AD:
Most of my childhood was loathsome but when we went on holiday and stayed at my grandparents house in the Isle of Wight I loved it. They had a cook who used to make really simple food but I still dream of it and that was the first time I had butter not margarine. I knew when I was an adult that I would always have butter and would never have to wear tights again! The other food was ham and new potatoes from their garden and a pea soup which I think was 90% chicken stock. My father was a vegan and he tried to impose this on us for years. I have only had one steak but it felt dangerous to eat it and I felt liberated! A lot of my adolescence I was anaemic and craved meat but knew it wouldn’t be worth my fathers rage if I ate it secretly.
Some food memories are not about cooking:
Do you have a favourite or most striking food memory?
AD:
Sorry got carried away above-yes loads. When we went to Edinburgh it highlighted to me how everything I usually hated was lovely in Edinburgh-like the rock. There used to be a baked potato shop called Tatties there too and I loved going there-we were hardly ever allowed baked potatoes at home as the drain of my mother’s oven was too much of a strain on the national grid.
My mum says she loves using her grandmother’s rolling pin. This Victorian piece of wood seems to have its own life story!
Are you attached to certain objects through nostalgia or memory? Could you give an example and describe its meaning for you?
AD:
Loads I think-I think other peoples maybe more than my own. I recently raided my fathers recycling bin. I hadn’t seen him for 18 years so his old papers with the crossword filled in have a strange emotional value for me.
