TL;DR
Food can be associated with the good memories, sometimes the bad too. I make a few of those that are both.
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I think most of us have very strong memories when it comes to food, particularly the events around partaking food. Who we were with, what were we doing and what were we eating get solidified into long term memories that when we think of food, we are immediately transported to that first event. It is often the good times, laughter with friends and amazing food that makes us close to impossible to forget.
Of all the deserts I've ever tried, none can bring me close to the first time I've tried cheesecake, a very specific cheesecake. Blueberry cheesecake. To be exact, Sara Lee's blueberry cheesecake that's freely available in the frozen food section of the supermarket. It's not the best cheesecake I've ever had but when I first had it, it was a mind blowing experience. And I remembered it clearly, mum bought this cake because we wanted to give it a try and I have never tasted cheesecakes nor blueberries back home at that time. After one slice became two and three, suddenly I was almost asking for it every time my parents went grocery shopping. Till this day, no desert can really take that place of the almighty blueberry cheesecake.
It is also a very special cake to me. It was the first one that I have made from scratch in a crappy little oven, in a crappy student accommodation during my first year in uni. I decided to make it after buying a magazine that had this wonderful shot of this delicious looking cake on the front cover. It was also the magazine that started to bring out the foodie in me. So really, I owe it to this cake that I became interested, passionate even, about cooking and baking.
I don't know about the rest of you, but there are some food items that are strongly related to experiences in the past that reminded me about my regrets and to some extent, my despairs and failures. The blueberry cheesecake is one such item. It was only the other day that I've made blueberry cheesecake in more than 5 years because I was craving it. Well actually, it was an idea implanted in me a few days before that when I was passing by the frozen food section and see that there are frozen blueberries. I was happy that it still turn out as I remembered it to be (maybe a bit better), taking photos and sharing it on the usual social circles and was elated when taking my first bite.
And then I remembered.
I remembered the other events that I had with blueberry cheesecake. Events that I later regretted because of who I was at that time. It was a very strange feeling, how is it possible that can I feel both extremely happy and yet regretful at the same time. And at that time, I was alone in the house, the housemate has gone back to Malaysia for a funeral and the other housemate is still not back from holidays. The silence just amplified whatever that I was feeling that night. It dawned upon me that there was a reason why I had not want to make blueberry cheesecake for so long.
I wanted to forget. Forget that it ever happened. Forget that I ever felt that way.
And so for the next few nights, I take one slice of cake, partake in silence and take it in. When the cake has been fully devoured, I think I might not make it again for a long time. I've had enough.
In the same way how I have always joked about if there were such a thing as a spirit animal, it would be the hedgehog because of similiarities in behaviour between this cousin of the shrew and me, my experiences with this confounded cake represents a lot of who I am. As much as I try to make myself presentable to others though there is nothing really special about it, I will end up disappointing myself. This cake is also a closely guarded secret of mine, not because I have stumbled upon the holy grail recipe for this cake, all about the why this cake.
Blueberry cheesecake is not the only food item that brings this double edged sword into my life though it is still invokes the strongest emotion of them all. Other such items are Milo with drinking chocolate, tuna with corn and capsicum and soon to be added, mango cheesecake.
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I can relate a lot to the film. I just wish that I can have the same ending. But it may be that take whatever baggage I have and keeping moving, just like Sue Lynne.
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