Food nostalgia can connect us with the past, stirring up positive feelings in a way that brings joy, even for people with dementia. Seniors Guide dives into why this is so and how we can benefit from this healing experience.
When I pop a walnut or a radish in my mouth, these two pretty unremarkable foods have a sort of magical power over me. Whisking me back 50-plus years, I’m at my Granny’s house, where I’d always find crisp, peppery radishes sliced up in ice water in her Frigidaire and, come holiday time, a wooden bowlful of walnuts on the coffee table waiting to be cracked. My grandmother has been gone for decades; however, these foods still fill me with warmth and the sense of being nurtured and loved.
Why is food so nostalgic?
The reason food can conjure up people, places and experiences from your past with such intensity is because of the workings of your brain. When you eat, the smell and taste of the food is processed in the hippocampus and amygdala in the brain, which are also responsible for processing and storing memories, along with the emotions associated with them. Smell has even greater impact in making and triggering memories because it has a more direct pathway than any other senses to these parts of the brain.
Related: The Smell-Memory Connection
Therefore, if you stopped your game of kickball for a Dreamsicle every time you heard the ice cream truck as a kid, the pleasure of eating that sweet and creamy ice cream bar is probably imprinted in your memory. And when you smell that combo of orange and vanilla and taste its delicious creaminess on your tongue today, you may remember those lazy summer days and feel at least a twinge of that same childhood excitement.
Accordingly, foods you loved as a kid often turn into your comfort foods as an adult. These are the dishes that make you feel stable, grounded, and connected. Take my husband, for example. He would rather have a sloppy joe, like his mom used to make, than any gourmet dish that I can prepare for him, and only Campbell’s chicken noodle soup will do when he’s sick!
Related: Why You Should Indulge in Nostalgia
More than the eating
But it’s not just smelling and tasting the food that resurrects old memories. There’s also nostalgia involved in whipping up old recipes – whether they’re ones you used to make at a different stage in your life or ones that family members passed down to you. Making dishes with history behind them has the power to turn back time and bring friends and family members – even those who are gone – into the kitchen with you.
According to James Noble, MD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, cooking food and discussing the memories that go along with that food can also act as reminiscence therapy, a strategy that uses the senses to help people with impaired memory recall people, places, and events from their past. Food is an especially beneficial tool in this therapy because these memories are stored in more than one region of the brain and seem to be more resistant to the effects of dementia, reported Brain and Life magazine.
Case in point: At a dinner party at an adult day health center in San Francisco, seniors experiencing cognitive decline were asked to cook their signature dishes. After cooking and sharing gumbo, hot links, lemon meringue pie, and – the highlight of the evening – Cornish game hens marinated in Grand Marnier and lemon juice, the participants were able to recall long-term memories about the dishes they made and recount them to their fellow dinner guests. “The act of a few people sharing deep emotion and memories brought the community together,” Joel Kramer, PsyD, director of neuropsychology at the UCSF MAC, told Brain and Life after the event.
A taste of home
Food can also bring back memories of home if you’re far away. Eating a dish native to your home area can help ease homesickness and keep you connected with your cultural identity. When I lived in the land-locked city of Richmond, Virginia, sitting down to pick a tableful of steamed blue crabs – with lots of Old Bay – reminded me of my Eastern Shore of Maryland roots and strengthened my bond with family who still lived there.
Even if you’re still living near where you were born but your family hails from other parts of the world, you probably derive a lot of comfort from preparing and/or eating cuisine from your native land. For example, if your family is German, you might find yourself gravitating toward the bratwurst and wiener schnitzel … but usually not because of the taste alone. Instead, that food may bring back memories of your Oma (grandmother) and how everyone gathered around her table for a traditional German meal every Sunday afternoon.
Explains renowned Spanish-American chef José Andrés, “I realized very early the power of food to evoke memory, to bring people together, to transport you to other places.”
While the food on your table is thrilling your tastebuds and filling your belly, perhaps more importantly, it’s also a way to connect: your past with your present, with your friends and family members and with your heritage.
