Do you feel it? That particular kind of quiet that shows up in autumn? The light changes first, then the air goes from hot and stale to cool and breezy. That certain something in you that has been running at a hundred miles an hour since June finally slows down. Fall is fast approaching, and it is something I always welcome.
Yes, I’m talking about the beginning of hibernation season for us all. I don’t mean the kind that happens beneath the ground; I’m referring to the kind that happens at the table. We cook more slowly, we eat closer to the stove, we stop rushing to reach for the next thing and start noticing the thing that’s right in front of us. Which is exactly why, if you ask most people what they remember about a meal, they rarely describe the entire plate.
Memory Triggers
Ask someone about a meal from their childhood and watch what happens. They typically don’t describe what the table looked like or what other courses were served for that particular meal. They land on one specific memory: the crunch of their mom’s pie crust, the way steam swirled up and out of a bowl of soup enjoyed on the front porch, or the scent of fresh onions hitting hot butter in a Dutch oven.
Where Memory Lives
Smell is not the only thing doing the work here. Taste has a memory of its own and can be tied to a certain place, not just a flavor. The same dish, made the exact same way, might taste different at your mother’s table than it does anywhere else. Not because the recipe changed, but because the room and the people you remember in that moment did.
For example, when I eat a small plate of canned peaches, cottage cheese and Melba toast as a light snack on a Sunday afternoon, my mind goes back to 1975, to our family dining room table. The table was hefty, with thick legs that took up more space than they should have and had no interest in accommodating 12 restless knees. Mine were still tucked into a high chair off to the side. My mother covered the table in vinyl with a flannel backing—“silence cloth,” they called it. It was ridiculous and awesome all at once. Bright oranges and lemons danced across the surface, glossy and cheerful, and occasionally stained with yesterday’s breakfast chorizo.
This is part of what food studies as a discipline is built on. We’re not just talking about the job our taste buds are doing. We recall the room, what the light looked like, and what year it was. If we move the particular bite of food we remember to a new kitchen, something else is remembered. This is why a dish can taste like a specific person, house or version of oneself. The place was always part of the recipe, even when it was never written down.
Some view a meal as a single experience, from beginning to end. But after I’ve enjoyed a meal with friends or family, my brain doesn’t file it that way. It files bits and pieces and holds onto the moments that hit me the hardest. This is why a simple bowl of soup can outlive a five-course dinner in someone’s memory. Feeling makes a bite stick. There is a reason for this.
Smell Gets There First
I learned this recently, and it stopped me cold. Every other sense you have has to check in somewhere first. Sight, sound and touch all get routed through various corners of the brain before landing in the place that handles memory and feeling. But our sense of smell? It doesn’t check in anywhere. It walks straight into the rooms where memory and emotion live. Which means that when the butter hits the pan, or the glorious scent of cinnamon hits your nose while you’re checking on an apple crisp in the oven, your brain is filing an emotional event.
Food As Memory, Not Just Fuel
You could argue that this isn’t as important as I make it seem. Still, it means more to me than a nutritional science approach. We talk about eating in terms of calories and macros and what a body needs to function, and I agree that all of that has its place. A body, though, is not just running on fuel. It runs on memory, comfort and years of accumulated weight from every meal that ever made it feel something.
What I’ve learned is that our sensory experience, memory and history are not separate categories. They are the same material, studied from different angles. The most ordinary meal you make today is not necessarily forgettable. It’s data you are creating to file away for later. The question is, how will you file it? Under comfort, safety or home?
You may be asking why I’m even writing about this topic. What do I even do with this? Here’s why: It reminds us you don’t need to cook something elaborate for it to count. Don’t worry about trying too hard when it comes to preparing dinner. There’s no need to plate more carefully or turn every meal into a full-blown occasion. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The bite that stays with someone is almost never the most ambitious thing on the table.
That bite might look like:
- Eating soft-scrambled eggs right out of the skillet, still in your socks, simply because you can
- Slicing an apple and actually sitting down with it instead of eating it on the way out the door in a rush
- Tasting homemade marinara sauce twice before deciding it is done, just to stay a little longer in the noticing
- Standing over the pot a beat longer than necessary, just to smell the garlic do its thing before adding stock
The Plan
This fall, I’m looking forward to cooking and eating like the meal itself is ending my day on a high note. I think that is what this season is really for. We can still be excited about sweaters, pumpkin spice everything and boot weather, but we can also slow down enough to enjoy that first sip, the smell of garlic or a bite of apple crisp. Let it land. And let it be enough.
