Memories straight from the senses

Today when we were in our production kitchen making spatzle we were listening to a music playlist. This 30-hour playlist has a mix of old and new music. A song came on from the 1950s, and I was transported to the back seat of my dad’s smoke-filled car when I was a kid.

We all know that music can bring back memories. As a matter of fact, music is used for that very reason in Alzheimer’s patients. 

“Research suggests that listening to or singing songs can provide emotional and behavioral benefits for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. Musical memories are often preserved in Alzheimer’s disease because key brain areas linked to musical memory are relatively undamaged by the disease.”
From Jonathan Graff-Radford M.D.

For me, music has always been a huge part of my everyday life.  A song can not only bring me back time, but to an exact place and time.

For instance, when I hear the song “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John I know exactly where I was the first time I ever heard it.  I was 7 years old sitting on the front stoop of my Aunt Claire’s house in Elizabeth, NJ. 

I also remember a song called “High Energy” by Evelyn Thomas in 1984. It was the summer I graduated from high school, I was laying on the beach in Seaside, NJ.

I heard this loud song pumping from a gigantic boom box with a bunch of “guidos” walking down the beach.  The one guy had it up on his shoulder, followed by a whole pack of Italian guys. 

I sat up and actually said, “what the fuck is that?” Even though we went out dancing in clubs a lot, this song was different and I liked it. I still like it!

Anytime I hear Bon Jovi I think of two things, selling him and his band who weren’t famous yet high-top sneakers at the sporting goods store I worked in.  The second thing I was sitting at the bar at the Sawmill on Seaside boardwalk with Marty and were told that they have been shooting a video for his song new song “In and out of love” right below us. They were shooting the album cover photos the day were there. The bartender tipped us off and we snuck down for a peek. 

Hearing isn’t the only sense that brings back memories, but smell does too. Way out there memories. Here is a strange one, I was walking by a cologne counter one day and I could smell the fragrance “Brut.”  The next thing I knew I remembered my toy, Light Bright. Weird right? I loved my Light Bright that I got as a present from Santa when I was 7 or 8 years old.  My little colored pegs were stored in a small shiny black box, the box from my dad’s Brut cologne. The cologne was more than likely a Christmas gift he received that year too.

Another one of my smell memories is probably the same for almost everyone I know from Jersey. Whenever I smell Italian sausage and peppers I think of the Jersey shore again. Hey, I spent a lot of time “down the shore.”  The Midway Steak House is in Seaside Heights right smack dab in the middle of the boardwalk. Another smell memory from Seaside is Coppertone Suntan lotion. 

Taste is of course is another one of our senses to evoke memories.  I love the taste of curry now, but not when I was a kid. My family was out to eat on a Sunday afternoon since that’s what my parents like to do. We would go for a ride and stop somewhere to have dinner.

We were at a restaurant called Ye Cottage Inn, again down the Jersey Shore. I was under 9 years old listening to the older than dirt waitress rattle off the specials. When it was my turn to order I ordered the Shrimp Curry. My father said “You are not getting that! You won’t like it.” I told him I wanted to try it. He warned me that if I ordered it, I HAD to eat the whole thing. I told the waitress, “I will have the shrimp curry please.”

When my meal came the plate was huge!  There were maybe 8 large shrimp and a mountain of rice. I smelled it as my father said, “I told you.” 

To prove him wrong I was going to eat every last morsel on that damn plate. I took a bite of the shrimp and it was spicy. My young palate wasn’t used to spicy food at all.  Oh no!

I was crying to myself, inside not in front of my parents. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Slowly I made my way through that torturous plate of shrimp. I had to psych myself up every time I took a bite. Thank sweet Mother of God for that mountain of white rice. 

When I finished the last piece of shrimp I had finished all the rice as well. Now I didn’t have a big vocabulary of swear words in my arsenal yet, but if I did I would have said fuck you to my father. 

This was not only a painful meal for me to swallow, but it was the first time I felt like my dad turned on me. It was that smirk on my mother’s face the whole time that made me realize it. 

Now onto good tasting memories! I have a good palate and can reproduce almost any food just by tasting and smelling it. It comes in handy when we have a sauce or something unfamiliar that we like or something we can never get again, like on a vacation. I can usually duplicate whatever it is on the first try.  

There are two food memories that I have and have been trying for 25 years to duplicate. I am no closer today than I was when I started trying. The first one is called St. Cecelia’s pizza. Our town had a fair in July every year.  It was a big deal!  It was called The Iselin Fair. Everyone looked forward to it all year. Everyone’s bruises from the ride “The Bullet” finally faded away. People flocked to the long line for St. Cecelia’s pizza. I went to St. Cecelia’s school and this was one of their fundraising food stands at the fair.  There were also ribs, clams, and subs. I’m sure they were all good but I needed to save room for that pizza.

The “pizza” was fried dough topped with homemade marinara sauce and grated parmesan cheese.  Simple to replicate right? Impossible!!!! Only God and St. Cecelia herself knows what was in that dough and sauce. 

The second taste memory is from an Italian restaurant & bar called Spiritos. Spiritos was in Elizabeth, NJ where I grew up. It was in the Italian section of Elizabeth called Peterstown. For the record it still makes me laugh that everyone from there said  It-ly, not Italy. 

Spirtios had the best cheese ravioli ever.  I don’t mean good; I mean amazing. Ask anyone who has been there. They also had delicious veal parmesan and pizza. I wasn’t interested in any of those. It was always the ravioli for me.

The ravioli were large, you got five or six ravioli with just the right amount of sauce. The cheese filling was the most creamy, smooth, sexy filling that is indescribable. 

I have tried so many filling combinations trying to duplicate them.  Before I needed to go gluten-free I tried making them often. I would get so pissed off every time I failed, which was every time.  One time I was so frustrated that I threw them one by one out into the yard, this was before we had dogs. Swear words are still floating around the universe from that day.

Sadly Spiritos recently closed for good as well as the Ye Cottage Inn. The Iselin Fair is gone, in fact the last time I was back I was surprised to see a bunch of tall ugly homes crammed onto that small piece of land where the fair was held. 

Marty and I did go back to Seaside a couple of years ago and walked the boardwalk.  So much has changed after Hurricane Sandy.  It was great to see how things were rebuilt, and how some things looked the same. 

We went to the Sawmill for lunch.  It totally sucked not being able to eat their pizza since we are gluten-free.  We drooled as the huge pizza pies went by.  I can’t remember what I ate so it was must have been unremarkable. 

As we got closer to the Midway I began to imagine the deliciousness drifting through the ocean breeze.  They were closed which was a God sent. Smelling Sausage & Peppers, Cheesesteak Sandwiches, Italian Hotdogs would have been torture. I was actually relieved it was closed since it was November. Cheating on our gluten-free diet isn’t an option for us. Just cross-contamination on a spatula will make me sick for 4-5 days. Getting slipped a gluten mickey is a week of sickness, severe pain and cramping, and untold amounts of trips to the bathroom.

The power of a song, a certain food, and a smell is like going for a ride in a time machine. I totally didn’t realize this morning when I heard that old 50’s song it would give me so much to think about today.  

Finally, I wanted to report that I made shrimp curry for the first time a couple of months ago.  It was really delicious! I followed a recipe to get it right since I only remember it being terrible. I guess my under 10 palate wasn’t ready for it back then. I may even make it tomorrow night for dinner.