Last month, I received a care package from my mom in the mail. It was full of snacks that remind me of my home in Hawaii— guava cookies, chocolate mochi, and Maui onion chips. My mistake was starting with the chocolate covered sunflowers. The minute I tasted them, I burst into tears. They reminded me so much of my childhood. It was downhill from there. I put on my headphones and played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while quite literally eating every snack my mom sent me and sobbing uncontrollably. This nostalgic feeling is one we all experience through food because it reminds us of people, places, and times in our lives. Food nostalgia is directly connected to the fact that food is social; the sensory experience that comes with eating brings us back to memories that are vivid and emotional.

Psychologist Tais Millsap says, “food can be a negative or a positive trigger. For example, if a parent used to make a specific food, whenever you eat that food it will feel like comfort to you. You will relate that food to the good experience that you had. In the same way, this nostalgia can serve as a negative trigger. For example, if a child is neglected food in their childhood, having food will become a trigger of not having food.”

This explains why a bite of a funnel cake might bring you back to the carnival you went to for your eighth birthday and makes you feel happy. Similarly, how a bite of lasagna might bring you back to the time you got food poisoning and ended up in the ER. Good or bad, we all have memories associated with food.

Anna Moon, Emerson College, ‘22, recalls spam, rice, and eggs as a nostalgic meal from her childhood. She quotes, “My mom makes breakfast in the morning for my siblings and me, and spam, eggs, and rice is her go-to thing. When I wake up that’s the first thing I smell—the spam cooking. It smells so good, it makes me get out of bed.”

“Our senses are what brings us the most information about what reminds us of things, and food has two of them—the smell and the taste,” Millsap says. When we smell and taste food, it is extremely powerful and stimulates a variety of feelings. This explains why we can feel a mixture of emotions when we are nostalgic. Moon went on to say, “your senses like taste, touch, and smell contribute to certain memories you have because without them you wouldn't be able to have all the details of those memories.”

Emerson student Mariely Thomas recalled her own experience with food nostalgia. She said, “every holiday or celebration, whether it be Christmas or a birthday party, my mom would make the traditional Latino dish, flan. I remember going to the stores with her and helping her pick ingredients so she could make it the night before. Once it had cooled in the fridge she would take it out and the best part of the process came. Hovering over the kitchen counter, we’d anxiously watch as she flipped it over, hoping it would fall out in one piece. She made it so much that I eventually grew tired of it, however, it still holds a special place for me since it was such a staple in my childhood.”

As humans, we miss things and we like to belong. This is why we feel the need to be nostalgic when we experience being out of place. We can look at a picture of a time in which we did feel comfortable, and live vicariously through that.

“If you are nostalgic, this means that you lived through something that was positive, but also means that you are past that part of your life,” says Millsap. “This explains the mixed emotions that come with missing something.”

Food and nostalgia go hand in hand because food is such an important part of our everyday lives. Whether it be the smell of a turkey roasting on Thanksgiving, the taste of hotdogs that remind us of backyard barbecues with the family, or even a bite of popcorn that triggers memories of your favorite movie, food nostalgia has a place in everyone’s lives.

Millsap says it best, “ The types of food that bring you certain feelings are part of your identity. Your identity is created with culture, with family, and with everything that you live. Food is a part of that, and that is a part of who you are.”

Bittersweet Nostalgia