What you taste as a child is still there in your adult brain, even if you haven’t thought of it for years.

The childhood foods that we ache for are very specific to the place and the time where we grew up.

The importance of shared childhood food memories for bonding families together can be seen among expats who carry their ‘homeland’ with them in the form of ingredients smuggled in suitcases.

Though it was composed of shortening, corn syrup, colourings and other unwholesome ingredients, with a shelf-life so long it became the punchline of many jokes, for many the Twinkie was the taste of childhood. It was Proust’s madeleine for the junk-food generation.

Our childhood experiences with food can trap us in destructive patterns for the rest of our lives.

Every bite is a memory and the most powerful memories are the first ones.

When the flavour of white bread and processed meat are linked in your memory with the warmth and authority of a parent and the camaraderie of siblings, it can feel like a betrayal to stop eating them.

To eat these foods again in the new country was a way of holding on to the grandmothers and mothers who had first cooked with them. Often, however, the remembering through food is bittersweet, because even when you have tracked down every last herb and spice, the missing ingredient is the cook. You find you don’t want pasta ‘just like Mama used to make’; you actually want Mama herself.

Flavour has a remarkable ability to imprint itself on our memories and therefore to drive our future food choices.