Food is many things: flavors, textures, smells, an excuse to use your fingers to clean a bowl that was used to mix chocolate cake batter.

But food is also memory. It’s a time machine, resurrecting recollections that had shriveled like an orange peel on a scorching summer sidewalk.

Oyster stew does the trick for me. Every Christmastime, my parents would whip up a big kettle of oyster stew. I was the only one among my seven siblings who would sip some stew with our parents. Which was just dandy; more for me.

When December’s deep cold arrives something deep within me stirs, whispering that it’s time to make some oyster stew. Maybe it’s a centuries-old epicurean echo from my seafaring Norse ancestors.

“I don’t know how you can stand them!” my wife might say. “They’re icky, slimy creatures who spend their entire lives inside dark, smelly shells!”

“Leave the politicians out of this,” I might reply. “And let me enjoy my oyster stew in peace.”

Making oyster stew is fairly straightforward. You simply purchase fresh oysters at the supermarket’s seafood case — I would probably lose a finger if I attempted to shuck a live oyster — dump the shellfish, slime and all, into a pot and add milk.

Patience is required for the next step. The milk must be heated slowly so that it doesn’t scald. This isn’t a quick, microwave-the-snot-of-it situation.

Once the oysters are thoroughly stewed — when they’re staggering around and slurring their words – you ladle the milk and mollusks into a bowl. I float a generous pat of butter on top along with the federally mandated oyster crackers. The crackers immediately become bloated and soft, not unlike a bodybuilder who stops hitting the gym.

When we were kids my siblings and I were forced to participate in the Christmas program at First Lutheran Church regardless of the weather. This wouldn’t have been an issue if we lived in a non-frostbite-prone region, someplace that’s closer to the equator than the North Pole. There aren’t any palm trees out here on the tundra.

Our family’s car was so old that its weatherstripping was installed during the Stone Age. The cab of that car was about as airtight as a screen door.

Which was fine in the summertime when good ventilation was essential. But it was brutal in the winter, when wind chills dropped to the point where dry ice would form on the inside of the windshield.

The old car’s heater was woefully inadequate; it produced approximately as much warmth as a 25-watt lightbulb. We kids had no choice but to shiver during the long ride to the church. My polyester Sunday suit felt like a sheet of ice-cold tin.

The church’s sanctuary would be packed to the rafters. The congregation’s collective body heat warmed the room to the point where it was almost possible to imagine that you might be able to feel your toes again at some point in the distant future. But when the Christmas program was over – after we had sung about dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh – it was time to trudge back out to the car, which had cooled to temperatures that are often associated with liquid nitrogen.

Our parents would never start the car ahead of time and let it warm up; that would be wasteful. We trundled ourselves into the super-chilled car as its crystalized steel springs creaked and moaned and threatened to snap.

The organizers of the Christmas program ensured that every participant was given a box of Cracker Jack and a Hershey bar with almonds. Each of us kids struggled with the ingrained instinct to save these treats for later. But in that deep, dark cold, it was easy to convince yourself that there might not be a later.

I would munch on Cracker Jack during the ride home, telling myself that these precious calories might keep me from turning into a frozen kidsicle. Plus, it was fun to paw through the box in search of the hidden prize. Everybody hoped to get a secret decoder ring, but nobody ever did.

As soon as we got home I would eat the chocolate bar, which had been rendered as hard as titanium by the cold. I didn’t like almonds and didn’t want to be wasteful, so I’d spit out the nuts and squirrel them away in my top dresser drawer. They are still there for all I know.

Slurping oyster stew and noshing on Cracker Jack transports me back to my childhood and those chilly Yuletides in our drafty old farmhouse. Christmases that were made memorable by the soul-nourishing stew that was our family.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.comand in bookstores nationwide.