When you’ve stuck at home for over a year, memories of social interactions can take on wistful dimension, the “If only I’d known!”

In that spirit, a friend recently asked, What was your most memorable meal?

I had to think about that. Being nearly seventy, I can attest to plenty of remembered meals, for good reasons and not so good. I decided I’d rule out memorable in the train wreck sense, as none of those were funny. (Disastrous meals that turn out to be hilarious in retrospect can turn into fond memories.)

My childhood memories about glorious meals come straight from the intensely felt, uncomplicated hunger of the young. There are also meals shared with sweeties wherein the joy of emotional connection adds its grace note to what might have been a simple home-cooked meal as much as a gourmand’s delight at a fancy restaurant—in both cases, the details of the meals have faded, leaving memories of the people themselves.

In that sense, meals I’ve shared with other writers, often delicious meals, became that much more enjoyable because of the fast wit, the headlong literary explorations, the group commiserations over the grunt labor part of the writing life, the joy of talking shop without fear of boring others. When I think back over many of those, I can’t always recollect what we were eating at any specific meal, though I can recollect portions of conversations.

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