John S. Allen’s The Omnivorous Mind is an examination of the cultural and biological truths revealed by our evolving relationship with food. From the diets of our earliest ancestors, to cooking’s role in the evolution of the human brain, to the preoccupations of contemporary foodies, Allen’s take on how and what we eat is consistently revelatory. Below, Allen looks at the powerful role food plays in human memory. Also below, listen to a conversation with Allen on a recent episode of our podcast.
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Not that long ago, at the counter of a gas station out in the country, something yellow and red caught my eye—it was a Bit-O-Honey candy bar wrapper. I had not had a Bit-O-Honey bar for nearly 40 years, having moved as a child from Bit-O-Honey’s midwest base to California. So I bought one. As I unwrapped and ate it, certain memories quickly came back to me: the difficulty of getting the inside wrapping paper off the sticky taffy, the little rectangles meant to be broken off one by one, the initial hard chewiness that always made me wonder if it was stale, and finally, the honeyed flavor of the taffy itself, offset by little bits of nut. The memories did not stop there, however: in an instant, I was transported back in time to the back seat of my parents’ car, looking out the window at the apparently endless rows of corn stalks that passed by for hour after hour as we drove down highways and interstates. I thought about AM radio and the backs of my parents’ heads. I finished my chunk of Bit-O-Honey, got in my car, and drove back to the present.
We all have our food memories, some good and some bad. The taste, smell, and texture of food can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back memories not just of eating food itself but also of place and setting. Food is an effective trigger of deeper memories of feelings and emotions, internal states of the mind and body. So my Bit-O-Honey experience is not all that unusual. Search for websites with the word candy combined with vintage, retro, or nostalgia, and it becomes readily apparent that many people use candy as a pathway to the past. But why should this be the case?
There are several reasons. First, evolution has seen to it that food in general may be a privileged target of memory in the brain. There is a part of the brain called the hippocampus (one in each hemisphere) that is critical for memory. The hippocampus is particularly important for forming long-term, declarative memories—those that can be consciously recalled and which contribute to the autobiographies that we all carry around in our heads. The hippocampus is also important for spatial memories, which may be its primary role for animals that do not possess language. The hippocampus has strong connections with parts of the brain that are important for emotion and for smell. This may explain why emotional memories can be so vivid or why certain smells trigger a sense of recall in us even before we consciously remember an event.
But what specifically about childhood candy bars makes them so evocative decades later? Based on our primate ancestry as fruit seekers and eaters, the sweetness of candy pushes a button in our brains—we have a natural sweet tooth. Upon eating a highly appealing food, such as one that is sweet, the reward centers of our brains are activated. The neurotransmitter dopamine has a key role in the brain biology of reward, but dopamine pathways are also involved in many other brain functions. One of these functions, via the hippocampus, is turning short term memories into long term ones. The brain’s reward mechanisms serve to motivate certain actions and behaviors. This would not work very well if motivation was not reinforced by memory.
Additionally, for a child, candies and candy bars are often a special treat. This alone could make eating them a memorable experience. But beyond that, those candies that are associated with special childhood occasions, such as driving trips, visiting a friend or relative, or holidays, are often especially memory-rich. Emotion and novelty tend to make events more memorable, and those tied in some way with food may make for even more powerful memories. Nearly all human cultures engage in feasting, in which past events or special occurrences are commemorated with an abundance of food. The practice probably began as a means to share temporary excesses of food among large groups of people so that it would not go to waste. Over time, food abundance has become a vehicle for memory enhancement at the cultural level. Feasts serve not only an abundance of food but an abundance of memories.
A Bit-O-Honey bar or a Pearson's Salted Nut Roll or a package of Necco Wafers does not a feast make. However, under the right circumstances, a childhood candy resampled years later can unleash a cornucopia of memories. Candy and food in general are of course not unique in their ability to promote a mnemonic cascade. However, our evolved psychology may make food one of the more likely things in the environment around which memories are formed and focused.
