Nostalgia is like butter on bread for me. Or should I say margarine. Growing up, Dad would only use margarine. I never had butter until I met my husband Adrian and I was flabbergasted by the creamy salty taste as opposed to the hydrogenated oils I had grown up on. Unlike margarine, however, most of the foods from my childhood still tempt me.
For example, I still love me a frozen chicken pot pie. Not the Marie Callender's one. I like the cheap two for a dollar one. With careful precision, I wrap the foil around the rim and put it in the oven and wait for it to heat and bubble up. Yanking it out of the oven at the exactly 45 minute mark, I cover it with pepper just like my dad used to. Biting in, I get so excited to eat it, I often burn my tongue.
My dad's three addictions in life were food, alcohol and gambling. He passed them all down to me. This essay is only about the food addictions (the other addictions will wait for another day and another blog).
Just like my dad, I love me a piece of fried chicken from the box. And donuts. On donut day, Dad would go down to the Yum Yum donut shop and get the day old ones for 75 percent off. It rounded out to less than ten cents a donut and my jelly filled glazed was worth every cent.
To this day, I cannot resist a glass filled case of the fried jelly filled wonder. It is not that it tastes delicious. I would say today's donuts are only passable. But, it is the feeling I get when I eat it. I can almost hear my dad's voice and see me and my sisters scrambling over to the box to grab our favorites. And homemade buttered and heavily salted popcorn is still my go to in times of stress. I do not put it in a Stater Brothers brown paper bag like my dad did, but the feeling is still the same. And hard candy that I hated as a kid, is now tasty to me. Channeling Dad through candy and popcorn is hard to beat.
Sadly, many of my dad's favorite food choices do not exist any longer. Pioneer Chicken's orange crispiness is long defunct as is Pup n Taco. Carl's Jr. is still around, but the hamburgers definitely taste different. And Pizza Hut, which was a restaurant with red and white checkered tablecloths when I was growing up, not a delivery service, is pathetic.
Nostalgia is why I still occasionally eat McDonalds. It doesn't taste very good, but the sight of the orange wrapping on the cheeseburger triggers the memory of my dad bringing us happy meals to our elementary school.
I guess what I am trying to say, lest I ramble, is that nostalgia does have a taste. It is why Italians pass down recipes and why my Argentine mother in law still drinks mate every day.
It is as if the very experience of drinking or eating something from when we were young brings back the youthfulness, at least for a moment.
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