In the article The Madeleine effect, Julian Baggini narrates his experience: eating during a whole day food of his childhood. While the attempt of enjoying food he used to love is a failure, the author goes further by explaining how the slight evolution of ourselves through the years conditions our perception of ancient loved tastes and scents, which never feel the same again. The distinction Baggini makes between memory and recollection enlightens this issue.
"Memory is nothing more than a kind of cognitive stamp-collecting. To remember is to recall, as reliably as possible, the facts of the matter. Recollection, on the other hand, is about retrieving the emotional essence of what happened."
Thus, the memory usually associated with food, as underlines Baggini, should rather be called recollection, as the process of finding back a feeling felt a long time ago through the tasting of identical food. It is not food that tastes the same (the author explained his demands got higher and higher as he experienced new and finer food); it is the feeling provoked by this particular food (pleasure, anxiety, security, comfort and so on) that was identical to past experiences of eating. Nothing surprising then in his disappointment: an educated tongue cannot appreciate bland sauce or too-sweet candies. However, a mind can and that's the magic of food and senses.
To learn more about the brain-processes involved in memory and senses, you can read also this article.
Hi Marie,
ReplyDeleteSense memory is a very interesting thing. Tastes and smells often complete a picture in a memory, which is why great writers utilize all five senses. The disappointment of "never being able to go home again" is acute, and often a large part of growing up. I'm looking forward to your presentation tomorrow, and maybe you can tell us your favorite childhood food?
What a lovely choice, Marie. I love the hybrid form of this piece: part personal essay, part memoir, part immersion journalism, part philosophy, part literary analysis. Undoubtedly this will be wonderful fodder for discussion in class today. Thank you for offering it to us!
ReplyDeleteHi Marie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting article and your presentation. I was particularly intrigued by Baggini's point about the connection between the vividness of recollections sparked by smells and our lack of ability to imagine smells. I had never thought about the idea that the vividness of such recollections might be, in part, due to the reclaiming of something that had been lost.
Marie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your presentation on Thursday's class. I particularly enjoyed how you described your childhood dish of couscous and cream. It is such a simple dish, yet so many feelings and memories and tied to eating it at your grandma's house after school. I think it really tied your presentation together, how even simple meals bring back to us such strong memories!
Marie, thanks for your presentation! As Dr.Heinritz mentioned, the article you chose was very unique that it was a combination of all the genres. Especially, I loved how it combined the science and the memoir. The article was so intriguing when it talked about how the accuracy of the memory is inversely proportional to the confidence we have in the memory. Also I really enjoyed sharing my memory and hearing others' memory about their childhood food!
ReplyDeleteStrawberry fields forever
ReplyDelete