Sensory memory and creating a community of memory

neweasterneurope.eu 1 month ago

Sensory memory most frequently begins with taste. It rises from the darkness of the mouth, stirring images that have long been dormant. The tongue, which is 1 of the body’s most agile and intricate muscles, is the organ of both speech and remembrance. As such, it not only allows us to eat and articulate sounds, but besides preserve the flavours of the past. Thus, the tastes that we erstwhile experienced and which accompanied us in our most formative moments, linger in the subconscious until they are abruptly recalled – triggered by contact with food. In that instant, taste becomes a time capsule, 1 that allows us to re-experience what erstwhile defined us.

In the catalogue of dishes that form a generational identity, we find flavours that are both comforting and melancholic, revolting and delightful. Each, like the legendary madeleine cake in Marcel Proust’s fresh In Search of Lost Time, unlocks a passage to the past. It serves as a sensory key to the stories that search meaning within our labyrinths of memory.