Wk 5

A taste of nostalgia: Links between nostalgia and food consumption

Alexandra Vignolles & Paul-Emmanuel Pichon. 

Food engages all five senesn, therefore it is a common trigger of Nostalgia. 

"Travelling back through a product into one's childhood memories" p225. 

The sense of smell has the deepest imprint on memory. p234

With the rise in cheap mass produced food anxiety around the safety has heightened. This is because of dieseases carried in food as well as health effects of eating unhealthy food. 

Because of the lack of knowledge and trust in these goods that are GE and have unatural ingredients  "traditional and artisanal food is considered as safe. The

consumers looking for authenticity in the origin, in the symbolic dimension and in

the unicity of a product are presented with a dilemma – convenience and cheap food on

the one hand, and on the other hand, the fear resulting from the fact that very little is

known on this type of food." p 226

 "Nostalgia can be defined as:

[…] a bittersweet emotional reaction, that may be associated to reflection and experienced by an individual when external or internal stimuli take him back to an ideal past moment or eventbelonging or not to his living experience (Divard and Robert – Demontrond, 1997)." p228. 

Food that substiutes something of the past can also bring up the feeling of nostelgia. For example jam brands that look homemade and rustic are often appealing to peoples whose parents or grandparents made jams because it reminds them of an ideal past. Becuase of the evoking nostelgia can be a powerful marketing tool for food brands. p 228. 

Nostelgia around food practices tend to function as a symbolic connection to the feeling of belonging and indentity. Family recipes and specific foods that were eaten at special events tend to evoke nostelgic responses. Often family "recipes are associated with rituals performed on feastdays, significant events, birthdays, new seasons or recovery from illnesses. Recipescontribute to structuring families and support the intergenerational transmission of the know-how." p229

 "Quite consistently with the part played by nostalgia in the attainment of identity,

Baker et al.  (2005) show that family recipes are packed with many elements of

selfhood. Favorite recipes are often related to happy or intense childhood memories,

such as birthdays or time spent with people they loved. A food activity or a mere

cooking smell stirs up memories and creates nostalgic associations. Just like these

dear objects, either owned or inherited (Curasi, 1999; Price et al. , 2000), recipes are

left to the people we love, hoping they will also love them and will be reminded of

special moments." p229

Food and nostelga can also evoke negative sensation, both by the way that nostelic longing can be bittersweet, and memories of food can be of disgust or illness. 

Food can also function as an aid to homesickness, for example it is common for people living overseas so buy the traditional food from their home, even if it is not the same it acts as a reminder of home, as a comfort. "These scarce moments are engraved in people’s minds and can be idealized in their autobiographic memory, but they are always associated with intense and highly emotional occasions, triggering precise recollections such as the date, the name of the persons attending the event or the emotions experienced" p 232.