Eating can transport you to a different continent. The smells and sounds…and taste of the food can temporarily remove you from the urban grind and trick your tastebuds into believing you are on the beach in Italy, if you’re lucky. Or you can swap one metropolis for another and pretend you are eating in Delhi.
But just as in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, we are not restricted to north, south, east, and west for our food travels. Sometimes food takes us backwards, rarely forwards.
The soup my dad made on Passover reminds me of my grandmother. The peanut butter and jelly cookie I ate reminds me of the cafeteria in elementary school.
And the root beer float I bought last week reminded me of a time I never knew…1950s America.
The root beer float was invented some 110 years ago by a man in Colorado, but it enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s at soda fountains across the country. And there I was in 2009. Big orange umbrellas, the bright tables near the parking lot, the jukebox inside the restaurant. Sure, it was big on the kitsch factor. But rightfully so.
