The Power of Food on Like Mam Used to Bake

I hadn’t planned to write a blog post today. I have nothing baked you see, no goodies to share with you. But just now, as I sat in the blissful morning silence at my kitchen table I took a bite from a scone I baked at the weekend, and I was suddenly transported. For a brief moment, instead of sitting at my kitchen table I was sitting in the comfort of the lobby in the Westbury hotel, surrounded by the women most important in my life. It wasn’t the scone alone that implemented that cognitive shift though, it was the jam and cream generously dolloped on top. That’s how we ate our scones in the Westbury. Still warm from the oven we smothered them with jam and clotted cream. Pots of tea accompanied them, and mam always ordered a pot of hot chocolate just for me. I didn’t drink tea back then you see, and that hot chocolate always felt like such a wonderful luxury. We gathered there for high tea regularly in those final few weeks, and more often than not lingered long enough to order a second round of sandwiches and scones as afternoon tea was served.

I have seen much talk lately on the interwebs regards the importance of food writing, and if in fact it is important. To some I know it appears nothing more than a frivolous act, a self-indulgent one on the part of the writer. Others, I am sure, just don’t see the point. You ate a scone, so what. As I explain to more and more people that I write a blog, about food, I see the “oh, yeah, uhm that sounds interesting” look sweep across their face. For me food blogging is about much more than the food on the plate. It is about capturing a moment in time, freezing it in my memory so that I can return to it one day far away and relive that moment again. For that reason food writing is so very important. A photograph allows us to see a moment time and time again in the future. But a food memory, well that has to power to allow us to feel that moment again, so we should cherish them.