Khao Soi (and Memory)
Gustatory memory refers to the relationship between one’s perception of taste and their individual psychology. It is the sometimes lovely, occasionally startling, sensation of a specific taste triggering an emotion, or memory. For example, if you eat Mexican food and it gives you food poisoning, you may feel tangible nausea the next time you’re faced with a plate of enchiladas. Or, if you fall in love over chicken noodle soup, you may feel that you’re actually in love with the soup itself.
Khao Soi is a coconut curry soup hailing from Myanmar, Laos, and Northern Thailand. It contains yellow egg noodles and a chicken leg so tender you can shred it off the bone with your spoon. It is topped with crispy, fried egg noodles and served alongside a plate of shallots, pickled mustard greens, and lime wedges.
If you’ve spoken to me about my time in Thailand, chances are I’ve mentioned Khao Soi. I must have had it a dozen times in just over two weeks in the North. It is a bowl of spicy, sweet, savory goodness. It’s fucking delicious. I really was (am?) obsessed with it.
Recently, I’ve started to wonder just how much I truly love this meal. To what extent does how much I love it depend on my gustatory memory of it?
As I’ve gotten old(er) and begun to travel more, food has taken on a more meaningful role. While I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying some seriously amazing meals in my young life, it’s not the Michelin hype that stays with me. (Perhaps pretentious — but the truth.) Eating is increasingly about experience.
The easiest example is street food. I firmly believe (and I think Anthony Bourdain would agree) that the cheapest, most accessible food option lies at the heart of a city. It says a great deal about a country and its culture. Tacos in Mexico. 2am Nutella crepes in France. Empanadas in Argentina. Döner Kebab in… most of Western Europe. Pizza in New York.
Joe’s will always be my favorite pizza. It doesn’t matter that I’ve only visited a fraction of the city’s slice shops. It doesn’t matter that their pizza is overpriced and the place is always crowded. (Sounds like New York, no?) No, what matters is that each trip to Joe’s is also a trip to my sophomore year of college when I lived down the block and routinely grabbed two slices (one margarita and one white, red pepper and garlic) on my way upstairs at 3am. Many of those times were spent with close friends, waiting in a line of drunk people and sharing funny stories from our night out, or gossiping about whoever. That pizza is pure nostalgia.
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There are also those particularly poignant memories that have stayed with me, and which return on specific occasions.
Cafe Savoy, one of Prague’s most beloved restaurants, serves a famous ovocné knedlíky, or fruit dumplings. Imagine: baked strawberries inside a light ball of dough, sat on a bed of sweet Tvaroh cheese curds, served alongside a (literal) silver platter of melted butter and cinnamon sugar. I sat there like Sally Albright in Katz’s moaning every bite — it was that good. This memory has endured, not just because I loved the food, but ostensibly because it was one of my first times traveling alone, and perhaps the first time I discovered the ultimate perk of solo travel: dining alone, even at famous spots requiring reservations, means you almost always get a table.
The dumplings also evoked flavors and memories of various Eastern European comfort foods made by my mom. I was experiencing some pretty intense homesickness at the time. The dumplings were, in a sense, a taste of home.
The first time I experienced the ecstasy of eating a Levain cookie was on June 5, 2016. It was the day they canceled day three of GovBall for a storm that did not occur. I was pissed. The cookie was my consolation. Now, if I need a pick-me-up treat in New York, Levain remains the go-to option. It is convenient that they’ve expanded tenfold since then.
Fruit is a miracle. I never fully appreciated its beauty until my time in Central America this year where the fruit hits different. I now experience strong feelings of gratitude and awe for our planet each time I eat so much as a blueberry. Papaya holds a special place, largely due to the “Papayausca” ceremony I attended at Envision which led me quite literally headfirst into two friends I had been attempting to find, and shortly after into a few of the craziest days of my life.
Maracuya sends me right back to Colombia — namely Cali — where my friends and I frequented the corner Pananderia for fresh bread and juice. Maracuya was the favorite. One of my friends, Paul, would go for maracuya multiple times a day, and it became a running joke among friends. It is these friends — and the sense of closeness and routine they instilled — that made Cali a highlight. I will always remember that group, and our maracuya.
Of course, not all gustatory memory is positive. That first anecdote was true. At something like eight years old, I got my first ever bout of food poisoning from a local Mexican spot which my parents and I frequented. I didn’t eat there again for 15 years.
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Last week I wrote about the power of place. This is a testament to the power of taste. Taste, and its ability to bring you back in time. Khao Soi will forever conjure the sensations that accompanied it: sweat, the slight backache that comes with sitting hunched over a low plastic stool, and a cold (but never quite cold enough) bottle of Singha — all things I associate with my wonderful time in Thailand. A bowl of Khao Soi, even a mediocre rendition of it, will always make me happy.
What I’ve failed to recognize, however, is the missing ingredient in my borderline aggressively positive feelings surrounding this soup.
Eating is a sensory experience like any other. It evokes emotion and memory. Only naturally does it evokes people as well. I will never love a sweet potato as much as my Mom’s on Thanksgiving. I will never eat a chicken parmigiana without wondering how my Dad would judge it. And I will never have a Khao Soi that doesn’t remind me of the person I sat across from every single time I ate it. Who? Irrelevant. What remains vital is the role they played during the course of that trip, and ultimately that year of my life — which is to say: overwhelmingly positive.
So, every time I sit with Khao Soi, not only do I feel nostalgia for the original facts of the matter — the sweat, the stains on my white t-shirt, the Singha — I feel love, grief, and gratitude.
That’s amazing. I hope you find a bowl of soup like that too.
Onwards,
Mag