This past school year I was an RA in a sophomore dorm, so I used “building community” as a justification for my stress baking habit. I have found that people are more willing to offer a sentence or two when I trade cookies for words. Although I made some meaningful and some shallow connections this year when there was food involved, I have had repeatedly meaningful eating experiences at the farmers’ market that we frequent on Saturdays in Louisville. Rowan is always introducing us to his circle of friends at the market (everyone who works there). Rowan has made us feel as though we belong to this little pocket of the city and to Louisville as a whole. So, I go back every week to meet new people and wheedle my way into this community I want to belong to…and for free omelets. The same way that I coax conversation out of my peers with cinnamon rolls, so Rowan baits us with delicious omelets so that we will explore the market and make our own connections. The past several Saturdays, I’ve spent my time at the farmers’ market meeting new people and collecting new suggestions of places to explore with Rowan generally as my guide, but this Saturday I sat down to eat my omelet and was joined by two people who knew neither me nor each other. The moment was a bit surreal as they introduced themselves and it turned out that we were familiar with the same parts of the United States, and all the while the jazz band was playing my parents’ wedding song in the background. They too were not native Louisvillians, but both said that they find themselves returning to this farmers’ market whenever they are in town. When our conversation was at a lull we all turned to watch the band, soaking in the unusually cool weather and our coincidental connections to places. The farmers’ market has proven to be a pleasantly liminal space – between farm and table, people with babies, people with their babies’ babies, old people, young people, flour and scones, eggs and omelets, berries and pies, people who are from Louisville, people who transplanted to Louisville, and people who are neither from nor live here, but return to the farmers’ market nonetheless. I’m no psych major, but what I’ve learned from my limited exposure is the strength of memories that have a smell attached to it. However, I’d argue that taste is also a sense that tethers an experience to the memory archives.
