My Madeleine

Nell Zink looks back on the pre-packaged food of her childhood

Francisco Goldman goes back in time with a bowl of noodle soup

Road trips to the coast and an Afrikaans picnic

Alan Johnson goes back in time to a pie-and-mash shop

Finding a sense of belonging at the breakfast table

Decades after leaving Nigeria, Marion Coutts still likes to conjure up its national dish

As a pleased-with-herself graduate, Taiye Selasi thought she knew it all. But Ghana, and a bowl of soup, taught her otherwise

As a child, Saskya Jain wanted to travel the world and eat it too. But at home she had to use her imagination – and a roti

As a child in rural China in the 1980s, Xiaolu Guo was worm-riddled and always hungry. For fortification, she turned to the veins of a pig