Best Meal Ever Week: Indulging in Food Memories

Karla Jacobs

Karla Jacobs is a writer from Marietta, Georgia. She fills her free time with reading, hiking, cooking, and spending too much time on Twitter. Karla would love for you to subscribe to her free weekly newsletter, Sweet Tea, where she shares all her favorite things about Southern culture, food, travel and people.

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4 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    Lovely essay. As I go back and think about my various favorite meals, most of them are tied to place and an event of some sort. The pancakes I had when I visited Maribou’s family the first time. The french fries and sauce we got from a little town in Scotland (Peebles). The bacon cheeseburger I ate at a little place in Bedford, NY (that apparently has closed and reopened a couple of times since 1989… now it’s called Bedford 234) where Mom took me on special occasions and gave me a dollar to put in the jukebox.

    I can make food that is in the ballpark of being as good as some of the really good food I’ve had… but it wouldn’t be the same. Part of it is eating it at the same time as being with the people you’re with, doing things, or pre-doing them, or post-doing them. Watching the bartender absently sing along with the song you picked.Report

  2. Yali Elkin says:

    Karla, this was wonderful. It reminds me of something Diana Gabaldon wrote about powerful writing: it should evoke three senses to resonate with a discerning reader. You hit on the sights, smells and tastes of these beloved memories and I think that sharing them with loved ones helps to ensure that they last.

    It also recalls this interesting piece in the NYT from some years back: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/the-spice-is-right.htmlReport