How far would you go for food?

I could say that the farthest I travelled for food was when I returned to Australia in late 2005. As much as it tore me up inside to leave London, my school, my students, my English friends and my housemates I was in desperate need of:

Jatz biscuits
A Balfours meat pie
Mum's brodo (chicken brooth with egg noodles)
Nonna's spaghetti
a Chicken Schnitzel Parmigiana
Vietnamese cold rolls

On the other hand I could also say that the farthest I travelled for food was when I returned to London in early 2007. Who would have thought that after only two years of living in the UK I would be obsessed with eating:

Quavers (the very best crisps around)
red capsium hummus from Sainsburys
a Satay burger and fries from the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Fulham
a chicken, bacon and lettuce sandwich from Greggs
Go Ahead yogurt snack bars that I used to eat during every single morning playtime

In both instances the food I consumed was well worth the 27 hours stuck in the air.

The more I think about these foods that I miss/missed the more I realise that it's not so much the food itself but what they represent. The spaghetti and brodo is obvious, I missed my mum and my nonna. Jatz biscuits are very comforting, whenever I was sick as a child it was the first thing mum would make me eat. Any sort of meat pie makes me think of childhood holidays with my dad stopping at every country bakery in South Australia to clean them out of their pastries. The UK foods remind me of eating lunch with some of my most loved work friends Miss L and Miss A. I never ate hummus until two good friends Netball Queen (from this post) and Belissa introduced me to it while we were travelling in Norway. Many a good night was started over a meal at Gourmet Burger Chicken. And who could resist a packet of Quavers at only 100 calories a packet?

These foods are more than mere fuel, they are the link to memories of my childhood, my travels, my family and my friends.