Memory Food

The memory food that I’ve decided to bring to class is sour gummy worms. The reason why I have such a close tie to these sweet delicacies is because they were one of the first candies my parents allowed me to eat.  As a result, I use to eat them all the time as a little kid. I remember taking an entire bag of gummy worms to elementary school and sharing them with my best friends Quincy and Khalil. We loved to bring candy to school and share them with each other in secret. I would bring the gummy worms, Quincy would bring Skittles, and Khalil would usually bring Starburst. Instead of sharing them during lunchtime, we would sneak them in our pockets and share them during recess. Those were good times, but then two things changed. The first change came when both Quincy and Khalil moved away. Don’t get me wrong. Even after they moved to different states, I continued to eat gummy worms.

At this point, gummy worms were my candy of choice. I preferred them over any other candy and continued to eat them throughout my elementary career whenever I got the chance. However, that would change when I went to the Dentist to receive braces during my 3^rd grade year. Obviously with braces in my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to eat the same food items I did before. Unfortunately, one of these items was gummy worms. In short, I was devastated. What would I do without gummy worms?  I loved them so much, and, just like that, they were out of my life (for a little while anyways). I was fortunate to have them removed during middle school before they were placed back in during my freshman and sophomore years in high school. I definitely capitalized on the opportunity to eat gummy worms during that time span, and after getting them removed permanently, I’ve made sure to make up for lost time.

What’s interesting about my gummy worm “addiction” is that it may be more complex than simply quenching a craving for a food item I lost contact with for an extended period of time. It is possible that my connection to old friends causes me to continue the tradition of eating gummy worms. I bring this up because after elementary school I moved and attended three different middle schools each school year: Sego Middle in 6^th grade, Spirit Creek Middle in 7^th grade, and Davidson Fine Arts in 8^th grade. In each year of attendance, I met new friends and shared candy with them as well. Of course, I continued to provide the gummy worms. The only difference was that the candy was shared during gym class instead of recess. And because I attended three different schools, I displayed this pattern on three separate occasions.

There seemed to be a connection between migration and memory in their relations to my “candy circles” that I formed as a child. A similar notion is addressed in Sandra Soo-Jin Lee’s article “Dys-appearing Tongues and Bodily Memories: The Aging of First-Generation Resident Koreans in Japan.” In her article, Lee discusses how migrants are able to preserve ties to their places of origin through their preservation of experience and memories. She further asserts that these ties can be social, cultural, or psychological aspects that link these people to their pasts and assists them in shaping their present situations (198-199). Lee uses the Korean identity to demonstrate this concept, and, while I am not Korean, I can relate to her article from its angle of migration.

The consumption of gummy worms with friends became a tradition and a source of identity for me during my early years of elementary school that persisted during middle school and continued with vigor after my braces were removed. Clearly I still foster a sense of remembrance and fondness for my past experiences with candy consumption that I wish to spread with others that I include within my circle of friends.