What sounds and tastes like childhood?

I am a big fan of food network. Fan as in, bigggg fan! That channel is like food porn I can watch over and over and over. A recent conversation on the channel included people talking about – food that takes them back to their childhood. What sounds and tastes (food) that reminds our neurons of childhood.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a particular food that floods my memories with childhood. Cake batter, ice-cones, cotton candy – nothing rings a bell. When I think hard I have some things I associate with ‘growing up’, the food that was part of growing up.

Like an amazing pickle my mother puts together in winters.
Like watermelon.
Like Mango-shake (smoothie).

But, that’s about it.

I grew up in urban neighborhoods. There were no orchards to smell and no running streams to listen to. Life was busy as kites had to be flown, rules for made-up games had to be created and things like ‘how to be popular in school’ had to be planned.

If I really had to pick some sounds and tastes
- What tastes like childhood – orange flavored bars of ice-crème. The brain-freeze, the sharing, the ‘almost-enough’ money to buy these every week and the orange color left on lips – that is all it took for a satisfied sigh.
- What sounds like childhood – growing up in catholic school, the hymns and Christmas carols take me to childhood. There’s something serene about people singing in unison.

It is no wonder that we always look back to childhood for pleasant memories (most of us, the lucky ones). Simple is good and simple can be remembered. There are no flavors, no attachments to adult-hood. How sad is that?

When we need the least, we are the happiest. When we care the least, we are the most satisfied. We look back to who we were, and how it was. It was simple and we were who we are without pretense and the need to be something and someone. That is perhaps, what childhood is – it tastes like carefree and sounds like happy.