08/08/2021
Question...Does Summer have a taste?
As Jen and I continue to work on building our truck, we would like to keep everyone inspired.
So yesterday I was asked. What is Ancestral Eats? A question I get asked quite often. I explain that it is very simply, the foods and flavors I grew up with or that you grew up with. I refer to it as... The Food Of You or The Taste That Brings You Home... I call it Ancestral Comfort Food. Like Italian sausage and peppers, cheese-steaks, pierogies, stuffed cabbage rolls, Italian meatballs, chicken-pot-pie, chili dogs or various soups and stews, just to name a few.
One of the most important ingredients in the food I make, is the story or memory that goes along with it. Taste and smell our the strongest memory receptors we have, food will quite literally take you on a Culinary Time Travel.
So to answer my own question...
Does Summer have a taste? Yes, absolutely as do all the seasons.
Summer has many smells and flavors, but one of the best for me would be... The Tomato and a humble tomato sandwich.
With that quintessential smell of the tomato plant. It isn’t easy to describe the smell of a tomato plant, but if you know it, you’ll recognize it immediately. The smell is grassy and green but also a little spicy and sweet.
Fresh baked bread, mayo or miracle-whip, salt, pepper and of course a warm fresh from the vine tomato.
The tangy sweet flavor of the tomato sandwhich, paired with the orchestra of the katydid, cicadas and cricket's playing in the background, to me this is the epitome of Summer and for a brief moment it's 1983. I am 10 years old and have not a care in the world, other than to just be a kid.
What does your Summer taste, smell and sound like?
