By: CHANDRASEKHAR BHOI
This article examines the close relationship between sensory experience and cultural memory, focusing on how smell and taste serve as powerful mnemonic triggers. Drawing on theories from sensory anthropology, cultural studies, and cognitive psychology, it explores how flavors and aromas evoke personal and collective memories, especially in diasporic and postcolonial contexts. Food, as an embodied cultural artifact, carries traces of history, migration, and identity; when consumed, it often revives dormant memories of homeland, family rituals, and formative cultural experiences. Through case studies and oral narratives, the article shows how the sensory immediacy of taste and smell transcends temporal and spatial boundaries, reconnecting individuals to cultural lineages and emotional landscapes. Ultimately, it argues that culinary memory is not merely passive recall of the past but an active, affective process that shapes belonging, identity, and intergenerational continuity.
