Book Review: The Taste of Memory

"Tastes and smells transport us, they carry our minds back, we do not so much remember their moments as relive them"..

This is a memoir by Australian author Marion Halligan (who I'm ashamed to say I'd never heard of before I read this book). It's a series of reminiscences about food, particularly food eaten with friends, most often fresh food from the garden. Reading it is a bit like eavesdropping on someone's conversation at times, as she'll suddenly start talking about someone she hasn't mentioned before, and it wanders from subject to subject, but in a quite delightful way. It's a real "stream of consciousness" type story, and she intersperses recipes with the stories throughout the book.

I loved the book - I didn't want it to end, and actually put it aside for a while before I finished to reflect on it, and put off the moment of completion. It had added interest for me as she grew up in Newcastle, a place I know well, so with a lot of her memories I could picture where she was talking about.

(If you search for it on Amazon, you can read a few pages as an excerpt - I have no affiliation with them!!)