Roasted chestnuts

[pegkerr]

I stopped by the grocery store yesterday, and along the ingredients I bought for yesterday's disastrous dinner, I bought a few chestnuts. I roasted them under the broiler after dinner and offered them to the girls. Fiona tried one and rejected them (of course) but Delia was pleased by the taste and had several.

They reminded me so powerfully, as they always do, of being back in England, where I tasted them for the first time. I remember buying roast chestnuts from the vendors at the street corners, who would pull them out from steel drums where they roasted them and hand them to you in a paper cone. They kept the hands warm as you walked around that grand old city, and the taste was so warm, so welcome, so sweet and filling and perfect.

Tell me about a food that when you eat it brings back a powerful memory.

Edited to add: since people have asked: Roasting chestnuts is extremely easy. Just make a criss-cross cut on the flat side of the chestnut with the point of a sharp knife and then throw them on a broiler pan and put them under the broiler for five to ten minutes. Yum.

Comments

[tiellan.livejournal.com]

Onion rings is one for me. When I was little, my mom used to let my school bus driver babysit me. This must have been pre-school because I'm pretty sure we were riding a short bus. She would take all the other kids home while I played with a box of toys she kept on the bus, then she'd take me to Jack in the Box and buy me onion rings before dropping me off at home. Honestly, looking back, I wonder why in the world my mom let a complete stranger "babysit" me -- Mom was a stay-at-home mom and there wasn't any need for me to be babysat. But onion rings bring back that memory, and I have pretty warm feelings about it so I don't think anything untoward was going on.

Another is tomato soup, although this is more of a Pavlovian response. My mom used to always make me tomato soup for lunch, and we'd watch the Wheel of Fortune while we were eating. So when I hear the letter-turning chimes, I think of tomato soup; and when I eat tomato soup, I think of the Wheel of Fortune.