Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri. I’m in a hotel room that is some respects criminally luxurious. Perhaps I should explain: I’m cozied up by a fireplace in a two-bedroom, two bathroom suite overlooking the city’s Forest Park. It is the kind of hotel room that in fact does not encourage the kind of exploration I am if not prone to, then at the least, find myself ultimately yearning for.

Still, I’m not one to swat away a nice hotel room, and when you’re in town, I’d encourage you to find a fireplace at the Chase Park Plaza to snuggle up by. The movie theatre but a few floors down has allowed for an ever so slight scent of popcorn oil to waft up through the air vents. Films and food: I’m hooked.

Just like the smell of popcorn triggers a memory, rekindles fiery emotions left to otherwise char in ignorance—so too do many smells and tastes for me. Food and in fact the travel associated with food is about people and about place, the core, elemental values of (my) memory.

I have just returned from an adventure to, unbelievably given the frigid rain outside, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. It’s a custard stand, and I wouldn’t be the first to sing its praises. But, perhaps more importantly—it is fervently anchored in its surroundings. Ted’s sweet, milky custard whipped up to a stiff mix called a ‘concrete’ is a taste that defines this place. Surely, one could get a custard in many places, but that Ted Drewes taste seems to anchor itself to this city, and the city to Ted.

City loyalists abound sing the praises of their local treats: Skyline Chili (3-ways) and of course, the meat and oats mix of goetta in Cincinnati, the boiled Sabrett hot dogs of New York, Al’s Italian Beef in Chicago. Indeed, one taste of any of these foods is not simply sustenance, nor is it about fine dining in the least—its about celebrating the local and the unchanged in spite of or in light of tremendous urban turbulence around us.

On this cold night, scarfing down a concrete in the company of friends, we are undeniably in St. Louis. We didn’t really need ice cream, and I’m the first to admit my sweet tooth has probably lost its nerve endings. But, for a guy on the road, a foodie on the road, a taste like this reminds us all of where we’ve been and allows us to pause before picking up a napkin and considering where we’re headed.