Memory munchies

I had a burrito the other day. Now eating burritos and other Mexican dishes in general is no biggie, i have it often enough not to miss it. This burrito was different though. The taste, texture and everything about it reminded me of burritos we used to make while growing up in Indonesia. During sleepovers, my girlfriends and I would sit in my kitchen and make our own burritos using pre-prepared ingredients: tortilla wraps, burrito/taco beef (ie: ground beef cooked with this yummy burrito/taco mix), store bought salsa both mild AND spicy (the kind you usually eat with chips), sour cream, shredded lettuce and grated cheese. You layer the ingredients, roll up the tortilla, then stick it in the microwave or oven toaster to warm it up. Then bite. Eeep! Yum! Eaten with friends around a table while chattering away about some new boy we were crushing on, or gossiping about another friend. Darn they were good. Could eat a million of those in one sitting.. which I probably did (entonces.. lol).

I love how certain foods, and more specifically, certain tastes, have the ability to vividly transport you back to a certain memory and subsequently, the emotional impressions the memory left with you.

Taho is another example of one of those foods. I have this yummy breakfast treat a lot so flashbacks are not as striking as the one I had with the burrito, but it brings me back nonetheless. Taho reminds me of summer vacations spent in the Philippines, particularly at my lola's place. When I would get up in the morning and zombie-drag my feet into kitchen for breakfast, there would always be several glasses of taho waiting on the thick wooden table, each covered with these silver coasters to shoo away the buggies of course! I'd get down to the level of the glasses and give each one a good look, noting which one had the most syrup. Then I'd pick up the coasters on each one, to note which one had the most sago. My top pick of course would be the one that had the most of both. Hehehehe. Sorry, eldest child, eldest apo on one side and youngest on the other (at that time), so I've got me some nurtured bratty qualities ;) So yes ANYWAY, taho reminds me of my childhood... and for many of us, who doesn't like remembering simpler times?