Food Firsts.

I must have been 8 or 9 when I first set foot in Canadian soil. I think we were doing some sort of hard-core-cross-country-voyage because one of the big highlights was the 32-hour bus trip from Toronto to Quebec. The details of that arduous experience are a blur. Aside from the terrible prank my sister played on me (details later) what I remember most vividly is the moment I had raspberry jam for the first time. You're probably asking yourselves: "Raspberry jam? What's so special about it?" Plenty. Imagine growing up in a country where raspberries don't exist and where jams came in three flavors: strawberry, pineapple and orange. This was the selection in the Mexico I knew, in the late 80's, before they opened the borders up to a new rainbow of possibilities (and flavors) from abroad.
My mother was always the frugal kind so it didn't surprise us when we ended up sleeping in a real farm in the middle of nowhere. Excuse my lack of details, but some memories come fragmented. I remember the long picnic table in the middle of the dining room. At the center, a big basket of fresh-baked bread, a jar of jam with a silver spoon and other breakfast items that I couldn't care less about awaited. I went straight for the bread and filled the spoon with that dark and velvety concoction sprinkled with tiny seeds.

What is this?—I asked my mother.
That's raspberry jam.

I had READ about it, of course. I knew raspberry was a fruit. I also knew that up until that day there hadn't been a jam I didn't like. I covered the top of my bread with a thick layer of that gooey goodness. Something hit me right in the face, metaphorically speaking. It was so unexpected and different that I was both amazed and excited. What about? The second, third and fourth bites to come. After I filled my belly with what seemed like a pound of bread and another pound of jam, the lady looked at me like she was staring at a glutton and then at my mother, thinking she had probably been starving us the entire trip.
If you must know what the stupid prank was about, it happened in Toronto. We were playing Memory on our last day and I fell asleep on the floor. I woke up to my sister's startling pleads to hurry up and pack because the plane was leaving us. I woke up in frenzy, packed everything, changed clothes, brushed my teeth and came into a room of laughing teenagers pointing at the clock. It was only 3 a.m. The plane didn't leave for another 8 hours. Damn you sis. I'll go back to my sleepy state and dream about flowing cascades of farm-fresh raspberry goodness.