June 04, 2006

The Taste of Youth

The famed foodblogger, MarketMan, has recently written in his website about the flavors of childhood. It is said that the foods enjoyed during our formative years carry itself the greatest memory. This is where your taste preferences were formed be it from your favorite ice cream flavor to your abhorrence to vegetables. Those tastes are carried well into adulthood, and each bite you take evokes the deep long memories that lay dormant inside the one’s brain just like a switch. While the connection between the faculty of language, memory and childhood has been scientifically studied, taste recall has not been well explored- and this is one field that might be of use to us in the future. For instance (this is just an anecdotal observation), children who were given vegetables during the early years will not be picky in their diet. Unfortunately, I was not one of those kids, so the foods that evoke deep passion within me are the sweets and those delicious junk foods. Well, too late to rewire, eh?

*steaming batchoy with 3 buttered toasts and cold coke with a straw, eating on the lanai looking afar to the lawn as the august rains poured…

*magnolia vanilla ice cream - i was forbidden to eat this brand of ice cream, but my grandma sneaks a pint into the fridge every now and then….

*butong-butong, kalamay-hati, hard caramel candies - my grandma usually buys them at the manug-libod (vendor) when she visits the downtown market

*inday-inday (palitaw with muscuvado dip), steaming pancit molo, pork bbq and rainbow-colored bread with cheese pimiento filling during childhood birthday parties…

*weird childhood food: toasted bread dunked in Coke!!! yum yum! Back then, i didn’t find it wierd. I do now.


Other junk foods...
*He-Man (orange colored cheeze puffs)
*She-Ra
*Enteng the Dragon (yellow-colored chicken-flavored puffs)
*Sunrise green peas snack (yung nakabalot sa foil)
*yema (those hard candies w/ yema centers w/ a toothpick *sticking on top & covered with pink cellophane)
*white rabbit candies
*CHIKININI!!! - forerunner of the boy bawang…
*camote-q being sold by vendors outside school…
*Bobot (a weird candy: peanuts coated in an M&M-like shell)
*Rin-bee? yung cheese stick snacks… meron pa ba nun?
*fishballs that cost P0.15 each!
*Ice Scramble (gee, what was I eating back then?!)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

grabe juls, dumduman mo pa to tanan nga names sang mga junk foods sang time ta?? hehehe... :)

- Rose AGL

j said...

nagcrave din tuloy ako :)

Anonymous said...

Do you still remember chikadees? Well I do. That shit gave me diarrhea for days when I was a kid!

yuri said...

uy.. ice sramble with powder milk and choco syrup.. hmmm... kakagutom...

\lam mu yung LALA? not the fish crackers yung chcolate... hahaha

E. S. de Montemayor said...

rose: siguro dorman sila tanan

jairam: i'm glad you're salivating

steel: oo nga... parang punong msg bawat subo

yuri: akala ko before parang milkshake sya... hahaha... umm... can't say i remember lala... meron pa ba un?

Gypsy said...

I remember my childhood days in Davao--marang,deep violet kalamay, ice candy, ice buko with red beans on top, dirty ice cream and buko juice with biscuit bits (we call this lamaw, that is, pig fodder in Cebuano). :-)

vina said...

hehe, to get straight to the point: i don't eat vegetables. my mother wasn't successful in enforcing this one on me. tig-a lang gid ulo ko.

on yema (or my version of yema, that is): i still remember dati, kung waay si mama, mabakal ko duwa na cans sang condensed milk, cook it till it's semi-burned, and eat it all by my happy self.

i also tried making pastillas de leche by and for myself.

hehe, your list just brings back happy childhood memories.

E. S. de Montemayor said...

gypsy: yum... i have to try that violet kalamay... parang ube haleya sya?

vina: mmmm... condensed milk and cooked sa double-boiler for 2 hours... namit kun init pa bala haw.

yuri said...

meron pa. last time i went to mnl, may nakita ko sa tabi tabi.... yum yum1 update namn dyan! howru feeling na? hope ur. happy father's day pala belated.

Anonymous said...

I remember the name She-Ra but i'm not sure what it is/was! lol.

Maraming salamat naman sa compliment mo on my blog. *still blushing*

Anonymous said...

*Rin-bee? yung cheese stick snacks… meron pa ba nun?

been wondering about that too...
remember those gummy orange slices? i don't remember the name, but i'm wondering if it's still available anywhere... ever tried ice cream (mango or cheese flavored, preferably) on pan de sal? the best!

E. S. de Montemayor said...

yuri: yum yum.... familiar sya... hmmmmmmm... it's on the tip of my tongue dammit!

mae: partner ni He-man harharhar... ;) chicken flavored puffs ata... can't be sure

foodtripper: meron pa rinbee!! it's available sa mga smaller supermarts... yes, the orange gummy candy i remember... always a treat during elementary years, i remember buying a whole box of the stuff that I got sick from eating them hahaha... still available at your local takatak boys