What makes food memorable?

After 70 years of fantastic recipes and travel stories, Gourmet magazine has come to an end.  This loss is just another thing to be annoyed about in our current economic climate.  Can't people just escape to a nice magazine full of edible goodies and fabulous travels anymore?  Apparently not...at least not with Gourmet any longer.  I'm sad to see it go, and  I know a few friends are as well.  Of all the food related rags I get this one was my favorite in terms of beautifully photographed food.  Accompanying travel related stories of a particular city or rural location helped the reader understand the culture and gave a personal history to the dishes being explored.  All of this got me thinking about the nature of food and memory.   It's said that smell brings back memories like nothing else can, and many of the smells we most enjoy are based in and around food.  Gourmet gave me a lot of good smells while cooking recipes from its pages and gave me new foodie destinations to look for around the world.  For that, I say thank you.


So many of my favorite meals were eaten somewhere "out on the road".  I started thinking about what I would classify as the top edible experiences of my life and realized that most were not even in the United States...sorry New York (Don't look at me like that Per Se, I still love you dearly), but I've had extra-marital food affairs on you and I'm not ashamed.  The top three things that immediately came to mind were fried calamari steaks in Costa Rica, my entire meal at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck and a legendary chocolate mousse at a cafe in Rome.

The calamari was just so rediculously huge and delicious, but was served at a little shack along the beach that my friends and I had passed everyday for nearly a week, not daring to enter.  Often, I find that's when greatness strikes...when you really, really, realllllly aren't expecting it.  What made the meal most special was being with Brian and our friends Kevin and Lisa (pictured covered in volcanic mud), and timidly discovering the restaurant together...not being afraid to gamble with our food in far off locations.

The Fat Duck (in the village of Bray outside of London), it may go without saying, was truly an experience.  We had a four hour lunch which took us through an amusement park-like journey from nitrogen chilled lime meringues (eaten while lime scent is sprayed above your head) through courses smelling of moss, fish eaten while a head-set plays for you ocean waves, Mad Hatter tea and Mock Turtle Soup...a continuous stream of crazy purees and combinations of sights, sounds and smells you would never dream would go together, and winding up with a bag of sweet treats containing a white chocolate Queen of Hearts.  Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite books of all time, and to be in the presence of a chef creating something so astonishing, so firmly attached to a treasured childhood memory just sent me over the edge.  Such an experience was not to be shared alone.  Brian and I, plus our friends Randy, Edgar and Elizabeth were all together in this nearly surreal departure from "real life".  Trying to describe this meal never works for me, it's only those people who were with me around the table that afternoon who can begin to understand it in the way I did.  It's a capsule of time for the five of us which is so special.

Lastly that brings me to the chocolate mousse...oh delicious chocolate mousse.  It was not long after I met Brian we decided to take a trip to Italy.  I had been there before with my cousin Jason and fell desperately in love with it's landscapes, culture and food.  If I were ever to leave the United States permanently, I think it would be for a stone house in the middle of a lavender field in the hills of Tuscany.  I can't think of a more relaxing place.  While on our trip, we spent a few days in Rome, exploring and eating along the way.  On our last night in Rome, we were exhausted from a hot and sunny day of walking (this was during the European heat-wave in 2003), and just wanted a simple place to eat before heading back to the hotel.  We crash landed on the sidewalk patio area of a restaurant along some random side street.  I don't remember the meal, but I remember that chocolate mousse.  At the time I was eating it, I thought "I can die now".  It was just amazing...obviously, because I'm still thinking about it years after.  Was it the beautifully whipped texture, the velvety deep chocolate goodness or the breeze on that particular evening in a far off location with someone special?

What does all of this have to do with pastry?  Well, in this case I've fallen for that demon chocolate which is as near to my heart as a good croissant.  Chocolate goes in a great pastry, but is so wonderful all on its own.  Whenever I think about good chocolate...especially that chocolate mousse, I think "I could take a bath in this".  For me, that is the highest food related compliment I can give.  And as for that mousse, well I shared it with Brian on a wonderfully romantic, balmy evening in Rome and there is no one I would rather be sharing my mousse with.  In an attempt to keep my love alive (for the mousse), I whipped up a batch this evening to cure my sweet tooth.  But, how could this new mousse possibly be as special as the one I had in Rome years ago?  By resurfacing the memories of time gone by and putting a smile on my face at the end of a plain Jane Tuesday.


Gourmet, you will be missed.


Here as a link to a great quick chocolate mousse:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/bittersweet-chocolate-mousse?

I recommend using Valrhona 66% bittersweet chocolate.