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Nice question, Caley. I've made it Question of the Day today.

Mine is somewhat unpleasant, and I've mentioned it in Talk before: In kindergarten, we all took turns bringing in a daily snack for the class. A classmate brought in raw carrots. At the time, I hated raw carrots (though I had no problem with cooked ones). I ate the snack to be polite, but the thought of ingesting the hated veggie made me sick while I was chewing and grudgingly swallowing, and I had to run to the bathroom, as I started to feel nauseous. Despite this bad memory, I like raw carrots now.

I have a strong memory of unwrapping and eating one of those strawberry candies, the ones with a chewy center and a wrapper that looks like a strawberry, sort of old-person candy, which I had found in between the bucket-seat cushions of my grandmother's car.

I remember being about 6 or 7 and my mom had made (or gotten from the store, knowing my mom) a cherry pie. At one point in the night I had taken my grubby little finger and scooped out a bunch of the cherry filling, leaving the pie. To teach me a lesson my mom made me eat the rest of the pie (I think it was half gone) crust and all. I tried a bit, then sat there and just started at it.

I was allowed a half hour break to do my homework or read and came back and the pie was gone. I just knew that God had taken pity on me and finished it for me.

But... it was my dad. Either way, I'm still not a fan of pie to this day.

I remember being a very small child and waking up in the night and found my mother in the kitchen eating. Of course I made that cute "can i have some?" face and she reluctantly obliged. I wish I could remember what it was, because I loved it and I can still remember the taste of it. It was some sort of dumpling. I rememeber it was small and breaded and had some sort of pasty meat inside. It must have been a frozen dinner or something processed or canned as my mother was not much of a cook. I have asked her several times but she does not remember what it was either.

This is a great question. Fresh Korean-style sashimi of some sort of white fish in Busan, Korea when I was about 4 or so. I remember a man filleting a live fish and blood on the cutting board. I remember being scared but curious at the same time. A bit later, I had my first piece of sashimi - cold and firm texture, and a bit spicy from it being dipped in the chili pepper paste/sauce. I guess my parents weren't afraid to feed raw fish to a little one.

My Grandmother had a damson tree in her yard. I remember the taste of her damson pies, sweet, yet delightfully tangy.

Another fond memory I have is the soggy tomato sandwiches we ate at church during Bible School. The tomatoes had been in somebody's garden that very morning. The ladies would make up a bunch of sandwiches for our snack time, and the bread would get somewhat soggy from the juicy tomatoes. It was wonderful!

To this day I consider one of my first memories to be one of my favorite things to eat which is saltines sandwiched with butter in between. Yum.

I remember pastina with cheese and butter. Buttery toast made from day old italian bread cut into little pieces. Baccala (salt cod) cakes hot and crispy. My grandmothers made signature sweets the sicilian one made sfinghi topped with powdered sugar. My northern italian grandma made cecchis (strufolli) covered in honey lemon syrup with non parels and jimmies. She also made a huge cookie for each kid for every holiday. When I say huge I mean the size of a shirt box. Just a basic sweet cookie dough with icing and more non parels and jimmies. She was a true baker.
Fresh perogis. My mothers pasta sauce with meatballs and sausage mmmm.

I was chased around the house by my dad when I was very little, to try plain yogurt - no other flavors were available in those days! Anyway when my dad finally caught up with me, they had substituted vanilla ice-cream and forced it into my mouth. The rest of the family laughed but I cried for ages because I had been tricked - and it took me months to even go near yogurt again.

A pleasant memory I have of when I was very small was of freshly baked bread being delivered to our house, and as a treat, my mother would cut a thick slice off the end, slather it with butter and sprinkle sugar over it. I can still remember the different textures of crunchy crust, soft squishy (sometimes still warm) breadcrumb, creamy butter and crunchy, sweet sugar. Mmmm

Oh, and another memory.... Being woken late on Easter Saturday to go to midnight church service then upon our return (and several weeks of fasting) being given Greek Easter soup which basically consists on the entrails of lamb - you know, liver, spleen, tripe, intestine, etc .YUCK - still hate it! The good thing was that the rest of the whole lamb would have been put onto a spit ready for placing over an open hot charcoal spit and the family would take turns in turning the spit to roast for Easter Sunday lunch (before the advent of electric rotisseries). Fantastic.

Unfortunately what I believe is my earliest food memory is rather unpleasant. I was allergic to red food coloring, which my mom discovered after feeding me jell-o water as an infant (don't ask, I have no idea why and is probably the reason I have such a vicious sweet tooth) and found red splotches on the carpet where I vomited said jell-o water.

She ceased feeding me all things red until I was 3 or 4 when she mistakenly fed me Trix cereal, with red food coloring. I proceeded to vomit in the back seat of our neighbors car, an ugly and messy reminder for my mother. I remember it clearly and can't stand the sight or smell of Trix, Fruity Pebbles or Froot Loops to this day. Even though I did outgrow the allergy I can't bring myself to eat those cereals because of the barfing incident in Jean's car.

i was about two years old and it was an orange sherbet push-up from the ice cream truck. i remember hearing the ice cream truck music and ran outside with my grandmother. i remember it melting all over my hands and face as i ate it.

my other food related memory was from about the same time period. i was at the store with my brother and i saw one of those big ass lollipops, you know the ones that were round and flat and had different colors spiraling outwards. i remember yanking on my brother's hand and asking him to buy it for me.

funny that my two earliest food memories are of sweets, and i really don't eat those now. i recently had an orange sherbet and the first thing i thought of was that ice cream truck.

my brother and sister and i were 4,3, and 2 years of age. my mother made us cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, instead of the usual PB&J. the three of us sat at the table and cried, because she forced us to eat them, and was very cranky about it (um, understandable, my brother and sister and i were 4,3, and 2 years of age, and she worked full-time!) and made us eat them. so many tears were spilt at the table that day.

now, of course, i would make a deal with the devil if i could only eat philadelphia cream cheese by the pound without becoming a gargantuan and heart-disease riddled mess.

still, i don't think i can do a cream cheese and jelly sandwich :)

I have two memories from around the same time (age 3?). One was poking around in my dad's home "office" - it was a bunch of shelving put together with cinder blocks - and finding his chocolate stash tucked into one of the blocks. Another was pulling Friskies out of the cat's dish to see what they tasted like. (At least it wasn't the wet food!)