Food Memories - Booralee

When I was growing up, cricket was a very important part of my life. From the age of 10, I played just about every weekend without fail, summer, winter, whenever. When I played basketball, I'd run from one end of the court as if I was running in to bowl at a cricket game, using the half-court line as the crease. When I played tennis I liked being the ball boy because it gave me a chance to practice my fielding. And during the 1999 Sydney hailstorm I ran outside trying to catch as many hail stones as I could - completely padded up in all my cricket gear. It consumed me. By the time I was 17, I was playing three games a week, and training 3 days on top of that. It made up a lot of my good memories, and was for the most part where I felt most comfortable

You're probably wondering where this is going. Fast forward to 2010. 7 years since my last game of cricket. As part of my constant search to enjoy the little things, I recently signed up to play in a local park cricket competition hoping to achieve some kind of enlightenment by pursuing my childhood passions. The day before the third game of the season, our captain emailed us details of where we were playing. Booralee Park, Botany.

Almost instantly my senses ran wild, and the odd smell of freshly toasted cornflakes filled my room. Located next to the Kellogs Factory, Booralee Park is perhaps the most delicious place to play cricket, and simply seeing the name of the the park instantly took me back there (and if you have never been past the Kellogs factory, I can highly recommend it just for a kick). Sure enough, the next day when I hopped into my car to head to the game, I had barely pulled out of my driveway when the smell surrounded me again. And it was with great delight upon arrival at Boralee to smell the real thing once more - and that day I felt like a kid again, and enjoyed my cricket as if I were a kid again.

But the food memory doesn't stop there (though this cricket-food association I'm a little less happy about). I am not very proud to say that, particularly in my younger years of playing cricket, after every game my parents would take me to those big old golden arches. It became almost a ritual. Every game, win or lose, with team mates or not, we'd drive through McDonalds. And every game, without fail, the order was the same. Small McChicken Meal. Unfortunately for me, since my return to cricket, after every game once my kit is packed and dumped in my car, I can taste that awful processed chicken meat, the plastic mayonnaisey sauce and the soggy lettuce in the over-sweetened bun. It disgusts me, and I am thankful that I no longer eat fast-food of any variety.

What these two food memories illustrate is the power of our often forgotten senses of smell and taste. Food shapes our lives more than people possibly realise, and so many memories, good and bad can be formed through the least likely senses. A lot of research is out there about this phenomenon, and food memories are pretty popular in gastronomic literature. No doubt this will be something I'll be writing about again.