Wild Strawberries

I was originally going to call this post "The Fruits of Our Labors," as it's inspiration was the wild strawberries (ok, not so wild ... I did plant them) that are just coming to fruition this year in our yard.  Here are the first two, which Steven brought to me one morning for breakfast, laying in a porphyry salt cellar on a Roman marble slab:

I'm here in the Maritimes for several weeks at Steven's family's summer place, and it's a spot redolent of family memories, with photos of long dead relations and books with notes in the margins in the Palmer style.  There are wild strawberries everywhere here -- up through the cracks in the roads, running through the lawn and down to the cliffs above the sea.  All of these wild strawberries made me think of

and by extension of

Foods that draw back memories -- and whether there are any of these in my life.  I can think of favorite foods, or even of foods that I don't like that remind me of certain times, or foods that beloved relatives made, but I don't think my mind is very food-centric.  I'm a poorly built animal.  If Steven didn't remind me to eat at particular times each day, I would probably starve to death.

Oddly enough, I ran into the closest contender from my life yesterday, at a small grocery store in an even smaller coastal town -- cheese curds:

My delight was balanced by Steven's mother's horror; here cheese curds are served in poutine, a combination of fries, gravy and cheese that revolts her (DELICIOUS!).  In my youth, cheese curds meant Wisconsin and stops at the local dairy, long summer days of wading in the river and climbing trees and going to country auctions and dinners at the Ding, the local haunt filled with smoke and hunters and pinball machines and jukebox and of course, fried cheese curds.  It's certainly less romantic than Bergman's wild strawberries or Proust's madeleines, but it will have to do.

Is there a food that conjures up the past for you?