Taken from the Melbourne Age newspaper recently:
"There are lots of ways of tracing your own personal history. You can go back through family photo archives and trace the hair styles. You can do it with music, by listing the songs that symbolize special times in your life. Or you can do it with food. Food has an incredible power to evoke the past; to remind us of special occasions, disasters and triumphs, and those long gone. I think of my father every time I grill a lamb chop on the barbie, and of my grandmother every time I smell porridge cooking.
To write your own food biography, come up with ten dishes from your past to your present, from your very first food memory to your current obsession. Write them down. They don’t have to be the best ten best dishes you’ve ever had in your life, just represent you at certain ages and stages. That’s your entire life there, plate after plate.
Your list will be different to mine, and different to your nearest and dearest. A stranger could look at them and know so much about you and your life; where you came from, who you became, and everything in between. The places you have lived will be in there, the people you have loved and who have loved you. Every dish tells a story, good or bad."
The article goes on to give the author's food, and I've decided this is something I plan to do in the next few days, after being inspired by my friend Nicole and my Sister-in-law Felicity to do so!
It sounds like a bit of fun - I'd love to read other memories as well!
