Cereal milk nostalgia
It is a cliché that restaurants sell not food and drink but rather “an experience:” it’s cheesy, but it’s true.
Restaurants address a basic human feeling – hunger – but they also set in motion feelings of excitement, anticipation, romance, and comfort and warmth with family and community.
In doing so, they often appeal to our sense of nostalgia.
People – in an increasingly busy and chaotic technological world – slow down and re-connect at restaurants because, for the most part, restaurants haven’t changed very much. They cook and serve food, and they do it in a space that engenders memories and reflections.
We perhaps learned that all over again as we came out of the pandemic.
What becomes a trend in the restaurant industry is often a nostalgic moment. Smoking ingredients, for instance, might get customers imagining a backyard family barbecue, while any renaissance in cocktails often appeals to an earlier era: there is little doubt that the hugely popular television series “Mad Men,” set in the 1960s, spawned and rekindled, at least in part, an interest in classic cocktails that has served the food and beverage industry quite well.
And rightly so.
For just about every dining demographic, the appearance and aroma of pancakes, cinnamon toast and waffles are immediate cues to childhood memories. Other casual restaurants double the appeal adding fried chicken and honey to waffles that captures southern U.S. comfort food.
When restaurants – diners and upscale casual venues – serve a grilled cheese sandwich or macaroni and cheese, they are drawing on comfort-food classics and nostalgia.
David Chang of Momofuku, an influential chef and restaurateur, along with chef Christina Tosi, re-imagined many a kid’s nostalgic breakfast moment: “cereal milk.” I enjoy cold cereal several times a week, big kid that I am.
Chang and Tosi toasted corn flakes, steeped them in milk – just like we ate while watching Saturday morning Looney Tunes – and used the flavourful, satisfying concoction to make ice cream and panna cotta, themselves desserts that perhaps instill memories and reflections.
Many, many restaurants aren’t just about feeding us when we’re hungry. The experience stimulates all the senses and often encourage us to connect with our past.
