Whether it's the smell of pumpkin pie baking in the kitchen or the sharp bite of cranberry sauce on your tongue -- the question remains whether certain flavors are indelibly associated with given holidays.
The spice giant McCormick & Company released its annual Flavor Forecast -- a press release that details the top five flavor pairings this year for the holidays. While the suggestion of peppermint and chocolate will make the good people at Andes Candies (now owned by Tootsie) happy, the combination of vanilla and red food color is a bit suspect. I'm not sure that red food color is technically a flavor, although it is how McCormick gets to discussing our current obsession with Red Velvet cakes or cupcakes.
The idea of a shared consciousness in terms of holidays is intriguing to the folks at Epicurious -- who wonders beyond the need to sell products -- if McCormick has managed to mine a cultural vein.
Can anyone really define "holiday flavors" and, if so, do they change from year to year? Or are they, by definition, fixed? And what cultural variations exist?The connection between the taste and smell of a food with a person's memory is well-established, the thought process essentially following a path dictated in this New York Times article:
Scientists suspect that taste and memory are inextricably bound. That taste, like smell, bypasses the part of the mind that is logical and educable and travels directly to the primitive brain, seat of instinct and memory. But it is unclear, given our highly idiosyncratic associations, whichSo how about it. When the grocery store aisle changes or you walk into someone's kitchen are you transported -- Calgon-style -- to the ghosts of Christmas repasts?came first -- taste or memory?
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