The year was 1985. I was in Kindergarten. Going to school was not something I savoured a lot. In a generation were more than half my friend’s mothers were home makers, my mom was a self made, working woman. Forty years later, I am proud of her tenacity and achievements as a four year old, I yearned the attention that some of my friends were getting from their mothers during lunch time. My grandfather worked in the same school, I never carried my lunch. I just go to his office and collect it during lunch time. Then came that day. I walked to the office and was surprised to see my mother there. She was all smiles looking at me. I was brimming. She said, she will feed me lunch that day in school. She got yoghurt rice and roasted okra. I was brimming with joy. The smell of mustard seeds on yoghurt, combining with the texture of roasted okra and the occasional bite of roasted urad dhal gives me a feeling similar to when Wordsworth saw the golden Daffodils. The taste lingers in my mouth still and I salivate every time I reminisce that incident.
Fast forward twenty years, I went to Scotland to study. It has been barely six months but I learnt a lot on life, especially on the value of food. For the first time since my birth, my parents and sister had to celebrate festivals without me. I missed them but more importantly they were unable to enjoy it as much. I decided to visit them during the Easter break. We have two weeks of holidays. Little did I know that my father has asked my mom to pack all the festivals into those ten days. The day after I landed, I had the dishes from my favourite festival, Pongal. This isn’t new. My mom woke up early to make all the items she would on that day. We all sat together to eat. By this point, I have experience this at least 23 times in my life. However, this one was different. I believe it was different for them. It wasn’t just replaying the event and recreating the recipes, it was release of pent up joy and satisfaction. The smell of the roasted spices combining with the texture and taste of the nine different vegetables in the sambhar along with rice and vada gave happiness a taste.
In both these incidents what was I experiencing? Was it the taste of the food? Was it the taste of my mom’s affection? Was it the taste of my yearning for loved ones?
In that moment back in 1985, when yoghurt rice met the crispness of roasted okra, something deeper stirred. The smell of mustard seeds didn’t just signal lunch it unlocked something emotional. That smell didn’t travel to a logical center it went straight to my limbic system, bypassing detours. Straight to the amygdala, where emotions live. Straight to the hippocampus, where memories reside. And in that instant, the smile of my mother, the surprise of her presence, and the warmth of her hand feeding me all collapsed into one simple spoon of yoghurt rice.
With it came a surge of oxytocin, the bonding hormone sealing the moment as something safe, warm, and loved. Dopamine followed, rewarding the joy. Serotonin calmed my restless, four-year-old self. What I tasted wasn’t just food. It was love, surprise, and the comfort of being seen.
Two decades later, it happened again.
The sambar with nine vegetables wasn’t just a dish, it was memory made edible. Each spice roasted that morning didn’t just release aroma; it unlocked fragments in my mind. Emotionally charged memories of temple bells, new clothes, crowded kitchens, and laughter-filled lunches came rushing in through the olfactory bulb, that ancient sensory gateway with direct lines to emotion and identity.
My nervous system, trained through decades of Pongal mornings, knew what to do: it lit up with anticipation, flooded me with endorphins, and bathed me in the familiar warmth of family. That’s why the taste wasn’t just intense. It was emotional. Even though I’d eaten the same meal for over two decades, this one stood apart not because the ingredients had changed, but because I had changed. Because time and distance had carved a deeper hunger not for food, but for belonging.
The science will say I was tasting a neural cocktail of memory, bonding, and sensory feedback. A carefully orchestrated release of brain chemicals responding not just to what I ate, but who made it, why it was made, and what it meant.
Demystifying a skeptic's world 
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