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Sweet Delights
23cm x 14cm x 15cm
Description
Wooden child's sewing box, lined with polka-dot fabric & ric rac, lollies stitched into towelling fabric, ribbons
Themes, comments & storylines
In early childhood, good taste in fabrics enters through the mouth rather than the eye.
“When I was a kid, one of the great sensory delights in the bath was chewing my face cloth.” (from my correspondence)
“The best way to find out the taste of umami is to buy a tub of monosodium glutamate, stick a finger in it and put it in your mouth.
It reminds me of chewing on a wet flannel in the bath as a kid. That sensation of wanting to chew it even more: that’s the umami mouth feel.”
Heston Blumenthal, in The Times, 4.3.2010, The Table, p.3
see also images of children sucking mittens or fingers, and eating sweets, in vintage knitting patterns:
The Knitting Novellas Volume 3
“I am in my pram, crying. My eyes are closed. I can smell the upholstery of my pram, which is already familiar to me. I cannot describe it, but would know it even now, fifty years later. My eyes open and I see the texture of the creamy lining of the pram. I now see my forearm and clenched hand, which I move toward my mouth. My hand catches the edge of a pillowcase or a rucked up piece of sheet, which ends up in my mouth. I suck at the fabric, which seems almost instantly to be sodden in my saliva. I enjoy the taste and feel of the wet fabric in my mouth. I am not crying any more. The memory fades.” BBC 2006
"Before I could walk. Sunny day. I was sitting in my pram outside a shop on the left hand side of Spotland Road going in to Rochdale waiting for my mother to come back out,chewing the end of the leather strap on the harness holding me in. I can still taste it, sharp, a bit sweet and delicious.[...] In my cot at the side of my parents' bed. They were both asleep and wouldn't wake up. I managed to scramble over the cot side and fall on my mother. That fixed them! (I only remembered this while writing about chewing the leather strap in my pram.)"