GIFTS

Words are Gifts


Sensory Memories

A whiff on our early morning drive to the mountains one weekend, reminded us of our childhood days, when we spent our holiday with Auntie Rose.

The morning aroma of breakfast being cooked on a coal pot, the smell of the charred wood mixed with the caramelized smell of our local rice porridge, wafted through the air.

As soon as I mentioned the aroma, R (my sister) turned towards me and replied,

“This smell is just like when we were at Auntie Rose’s house in Kumasi.”

I nodded and smiled as that was exactly what the whiff reminded me of.

We were very young when we spent part of our long vacation with her, but that sweet aroma stayed with us.

Auntie Rose lived in a large storey building. It was a communal house where the young ladies would cook a large pot of ‘rice water’ as we called it.

We would line up with their bowls and be spooned thick blobs of the porridge. In those days, we did not think about using sugar sparingly. We would douse the porridge with creamy, canned, concentrated milk adding many cubes of sugar.

It was delicious, very much like a rice pudding and we would eat it with buttery rolls of freshly baked buns. Breakfast was a meal we looked forward to.

#SOL21 #SOLSC



4 responses to “Sensory Memories”

  1. Oh yum! That sounds good! Concentrated milk and sugar cubes!! Well, I’m sure you had a lot of energy! It’s wonderful the way our senses give us such depth to our memories. Thank you for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Mmmm I love the visuals with the charcoal pot! My fiancé Nathan and I sometimes get flashbacks to our childhood while on our nightly walks – it is interesting how a smell of a room or cooking can send you to a memory so vividly! Thank you for sharing 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  3. It’s amazing, how smell can transport us so easily and vividly, isn’t it? Your reminiscing reminds me of when I was a kid. We used to warm up leftover rice and mix it with sweetened condensed milk. Heaven. Thanks for bringing me back!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Mmmm, it does sound tasty and you all obviously enjoyed it so much that a similar smell during a drive drew you back to that time. What a wonderful time it must have been.

    Liked by 1 person

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About Me

I am am Elementary school teacher at an International IB School in Accra, Ghana, West Africa. I write with groups of writers, such as Teach Write.

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