There’s a scrappy muscadine vine that grows between my neighbor’s yard and mine. It doesn’t make much fruit (some years none at all), but when the grapes are ripe eating them is a ritual of memory. The only other place I’ve ever eaten a muscadine was my grandfather’s farm, and they never fail to bring back memories of days spent there. Some of the best days of my life. Today was the day to taste some of those memories again. The muscadines are like Ray Bradbury’s jars of dandelion wine holding the memories of each Green Town summer past.
The brain scientists tell us that taste and memory are connected because they are processed near one another in the brain. This answer is profoundly uninteresting. The psalmist tells us to “taste and see.” Flavor and vision put together. “Take and eat, this is my body,” invites us to the table of the Lord. Food is somehow the thing itself, and also the symbol of so much more. I don’t pretend to fully understand the mystery, but when I taste the muscadine I know something true and profound I don’t know any other way.