As you can imagine, when it comes to food and cuisines, we like to think that as producers, purveyors and pioneers in the food industry, IFFCO has a head start when it comes to satisfying a vast range of the world’s tastes and preferences, which is why our product range will always respect history by featuring the flavours you grew up with alongside exciting new taste sensations. You might remember eating your favourite ice cream with your family when you were kids or enjoying your birthday with a big group of friends – so to cater for this passion, our Igloo range of ice creams will always feature the flavours you grew up with alongside stimulating new taste sensations, and our Nabil biscuits and snacks respect heritage by sustaining a connection to the flavours of our youth.
But why do we have these glorious gastronomic memories? Why does the food we ate in those far-off days become inherently associated with our past? It is simply because our senses of smell and sight stimulate our intuitive reflexes and take us back, reminding us of the great times we spent in good company.
As the world’s population rises to over 8 billion, all of whom enjoy a massive variety of dishes, ingredients and cooking styles, it’s fair to say that there are perhaps as many cuisines as there are cultures, and just as those cultures can have similarities sitting quite comfortably alongside vast differences, so can our choices in what we like to eat – and why we like to eat it.
Around the world, there are a million variances throughout the process of preparing a satisfying meal: the crops, methods of growth, harvesting, the ingredients we add, the sauces we create and our ways of serving dishes full of taste and flavour – all reliant on nature and humankind to work hand in hand every step of the way. For millennia, every chef, cook, parent, grandparent, café, canteen, restaurant, street vendor and 5* hotel has created distinct, unique and individual dishes that all share a single common objective: the desire to please diners and tickle their taste buds, which is how nature and nurture combine to form, and inform, our choices.
So, for many of us, specific food preferences are influenced by how they evoke powerful childhood memories. The psychology behind this is obvious: our senses drive our passions: the taste, smell, and texture transport us back to our childhood days and the food we associate with them – we call this “food nostalgia”.
Food is such a powerful trigger of memories that the role played by aroma, flavour and vision in both creating and recalling our memories cannot be underestimated. Of course, we are not alone in this thinking: in the world of marketing, words like “home-style” and “traditional” or phrases such as “just like mother used to make” are used to tug at our heartstrings, and while we at IFFCO strive to constantly evolve our product lines to reflect contemporary innovations and preferences, we also ensure that old favourites are never forgotten, because that fond memory of a long hot summer is triggered by the foods you enjoyed at the time: comfort food, holiday meals, cultural dishes, family dinners and parties with friends.
We also associate certain foods with feeling safe, protected and loved, and these foods are often eaten when we are sick or feeling down or to satiate a long-forgotten appetite for a particular snack.
At IFFCO, we celebrate food nostalgia and empower today’s cooks to create memorable heritage dishes with products that enable you to cook or bake a favourite childhood recipe. This is a great way to recapture the flavours of your childhood, and if you don’t have a recipe, ask your parents or grandparents for it because they, and their grandparents, were there at the beginning of your gastronomic journey, helping to form those memories.
You can do the same for your family, too! If you have a special dish everyone enjoys, write it down, create a family cookbook and preserve your children’s memories to share with future generations by recapturing the delicious magic of a childhood delight.
Click HERE to visit the Igloo homepage and rekindle your summer memories.
Click HERE to go to the Nabil homepage and discover more memories of great times.