Many years ago when I was a small child, I got separated from my parents at a store. The sales clerk who cared for me until my parents found me gave me popcorn and a little white box. Luckily, I still like popcorn. But to this day, popcorn makes me think of being lost in that store – bringing up negative memories of being lost and scared, and positive ones because, eventually, my parents found me and I was “rescued.”

Why are food memories so powerful? It has to do with how our insides work. You see, the chemical messengers in our bodies (called hormones) that are important for controlling our appetite and digesting food have strong connections to the part of the brain (called the hippocampus) that we need to form new memories. When we eat, our ability to remember is especially strong. For animals that have to move around to find their meals, it's really important for them to remember where they have found food in the past. So the connection between taste and memory makes perfect sense.

For us humans, meals like this Passover Seder are not just food feasts, they’re memory feasts too. Being with friends and family, connecting to our faith and history, and eating foods that remind us of our history and community make for a more memorable meal than your average lunchbox fair.

Oh, and the hippocampus has strong connections to another part of the brain that helps control emotions. This means emotional memories about food are likely to stay with us for a very long time.


haggadah Section: Shulchan Oreich
Source: John S. Allen, anthropologist