Our brain, that clever, complicated organ, is a keeper of many mysteries. So many mysteries, in fact, that I’m not even going to attempt to list a tenth of them. I just want to talk about one of them: the link between memory, scent, and taste.
Did you know there’s a word for that? The moment when a certain smell or flavor triggers a memory? It’s called a Proustian moment.
And lest you think I had that little tidbit just hidden up my sleeve waiting for the right blog post… I didn’t. A quick scan of the internet led me to the French author Marcel Proust, who described such a phenomenon in his novel Remembrance of Things Past, thus sparking the phrase that bears his name.
Side note: In 2017, I started writing a short story about a sommelier who lost her sense of smell. I never finished it and, post-2020, ansomia no longer seems like a unique challenge for a character to face. Unlike the wines, that particular idea didn’t age well.
Anyway, the TLDR version of why scents can trigger memories is because the olfactory bulb (our smell center) is connected directly to the hippocampus (where our memory is stored) and the amygdala (where our emotions reside).
Initially, I was going to write this post about how taste, by itself, can trigger memories. But this isn’t entirely accurate. As anyone who has eaten skittles while holding their nose can tell you, our sense of taste is very largely connected to our sense of smell. So, even when it’s a food that is triggering the memory, it is as much the scent of the food as it is the food itself.
Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot more hot tea. I have come to love a lot of different flavors of tea, but there is one specific blend that has been a favorite for over 10 years: jasmine green tea with mint. In 2010, this came in the form of Tazo “Zen” from Starbucks.
In 2010, Chris and I had bought our first house together. It was a short sale, and needed quite a bit of TLC. We were working in California during the week, commuting back to Arizona during the weekends, and spending every spare moment of those weekends painting walls and shutters and doors, repairing broken light fixtures and updating landscaping.
In 2010, I also was on a Tazo Zen tea kick. Every morning, before starting whatever rehab project that day needed, I would start my day with a venti hot Tazo Zen tea.
And ever since then, a cup of jasmine green tea with mint takes me straight back to those mornings in Arizona, with the tea and the dust and the faint scent of paint in the background.
Just like a glass of Thai Iced tea with classic tapioca pearl boba transports me straight to Long Beach, California, 2004.
Kraft macaroni and cheese with the character shapes is Halloween night, 1989.
I’m sure there’s more. Part of the joy of a Proustian moment is that you don’t always know when it will be triggered. One instant you’re enjoying a casserole dish of cheesy potatoes and the next you’re transported to that thanksgiving potluck in Iowa, with warm lights and family and your kids – little still – running circles around the couch. Or maybe you’re savoring a really authentic Camembert cheese on a crusty baguette and suddenly you’re in a university cafeteria in Normandy, France, young and lost and scared and full of wonder.
What is your Proustian-moment food?
