Melancholy, Wistful, and Nostalgic

I have fond summer memories of being outside when I was a kid. My brother and I spent most of our time wandering the quarter-mile stretch between our home and our grandmother’s. We devoured pilfered cherry tomatoes from her garden, sweet, unwashed, and still warm from the sun. We discovered wild garlic and onions and tasted their stalks.

The bitter taste of dandelion sap coated our fingers from plucking as many as we could carry—the metallic taste of lukewarm well water from the garden hose. We shared tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches with my grandmother at lunchtime and coffee almost every morning.

And dirt, the taste of gritty soil after playing too long in the dusty gravel and eating with unwashed hands. We made and then pretended to eat mudpies and, unfortunately, got more of it in our mouths than anyone should or would want. We played pretend and made some of the best food we’d ever not eaten.

We had our annual family reunions around July, which tasted like charcoal-charred hotdogs and hamburgers —intermingled with the tang of Grandma’s german potato salad and crisp vegetable platers. Side dishes of baked beans and potato salad. Veggies were fresh from the gardens outside: refrigerator pickles and onions (a few cucumbers, water, salt, sugar, and vinegar.)

The dessert table was piled high with pineapple upside-down cake, fruit salads, and pie; my great-aunt made her punch-bowl cake in an actual punch bowl. As much fruit and whipped cream as a kid could eat—fresh watermelon and tossing our rinds to the geese.

Styrofoam ice coolers were packed full of soda, beer bottles, and wine coolers. We would catch up, laugh, and tell stories from morning until night. The kids ran ragged and were immediately best friends. There was more than enough food to go around. If we left hungry, it was “our fault.”

I keenly remember never wanting to leave. But, our annual family BBQ and reunion has become a tradition in memory only—a relic of a simpler time—the practice passing away with the previous generation. To me, summer tastes bitter-sweet and nostalgic, the culmination of these life experiences.

Unfortunately, most recipes I remember so fondly were either lost or never written down. Or one of the grandchildren or great-grandchildren found a recipe card, but the recipe did not guarantee the food tasted the same because one of the relatives tweaked it as they made the dish and did not add notes.

Even I, who have watched my grandmother make her german potato salad enough to commit it to memory, cannot make it taste the same, even following the exact steps—something faulty in the measurement, I assume. But even creating it takes me back.

I have my children now. The summer flavors have become Peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches in the yard with sprinklers. Ice cream outings and popsicles. Picknick dinners at the park. We eat popcorn and watch movies. Looking and tasting nothing like the summers I once knew. As they age, I hope to make summers as memorable as they were for me. But they are still young, and there is no guarantee how much they will remember.

I yearn to return to that simpler time and place, but the world has changed. Our world has gotten bigger and smaller all at once. What made our summers memorable was not the food but rather the people. The tastes of Sumer were the excuse we needed to get together, reconnect, and enjoy each other’s company. Now the people are gone, and only the food remains. As a result, the taste of summer is melancholy, wistful, and nostalgic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you enjoy this article favorite, leave me a tip, follow me or share my work on your socials! I appreciate any support you give!

God Bless!