Take a minute to think back to your favorite memories. Chances are many of them involved a shared food experience with someone else, right?

• The meals your mom made every Sunday after church (the crockpot spaghetti or the crockpot scalloped potatoes, depending on the week).
• Baking cookies with grandma (she always let you lick the spoon!).
• Learning to grill with dad (you mean burgers aren’t supposed to be burnt?).
• Cooking steaks over the fire on that camping trip with your buddies (after a few too many beers).
• That lobster on your honeymoon (it may not have been the greatest food, but it was all-inclusive and on the beach).
• The spot you stumbled upon in that little village during your backpacking trip through Europe (you swear it was the greatest pizza ever made).
• That fruitcake your weird aunt always brings to the family get-together (yeah, you know the one).

You know what I mean. I’m certainly no psychologist, but those who are say it’s true!

“Food memories feel so nostalgic because there’s all this context of when you were preparing or eating this food, so the food becomes almost symbolic of other meaning,” says Susan Whitbourne, professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts. “A lot of our memories as children, it’s not so much the apple pie, for example, but the whole experience of being a family, being nourished, and that acquires a lot of symbolism apart from the sensory quality.”

Hadley Bergstrom, assistant professor of psychology at Vassar, shared a similar explanation.

“The idea of nostalgia is that the sauce [for example] is associated not only with yummy pasta, but also with grandma and her home ― that’s because food is so reinforcing. All of this stimuli in the environment become associated with the reinforcing properties of that yummy pasta sauce.”

As a barbecue brand, we have always valued those shared experiences the most – cooking with other barbecue guys, learning from those better than us, teaching those who want to learn from us, competing against other teams at Big Green Eggfests, cooking for and interacting with our customers. In all of those instances, it’s less about the actual food than it is the way the food brought us together.

Some of the friends I communicate with most on a daily basis are people I’ve met through barbecue — Joe Pichey of Go Blue BBQ, John Rakis who ran the Grill on the Hill Eggfest in Michigan, Trace Scarborough of Thunderbird Wings, Ben Marlatt of Grill Hop Anonymous.

Food is the best way to break down cultural or racial barriers because it’s something that plays a role in all of our lives. It allows noodle makers in Asia, tortilla makers in Mexico, pasta makers in Italy, and pitmasters in America to share a common skill — and those who eat it to benefit. It allows someone who has never left their own country to experience (at least in small part) another culture.

So today we launch our new brand tagline: Pastimes are Best Shared With Others. It perfectly represents who we are as a brand and as people. Pasatiempo means pastime, and for us it’s just that. Sure, technically it’s a job, but it’s our pastime. We do it for enjoyment. And whether we’re making rubs or sauces or bacon or brisket, we love to share it with others. With you.

Our brand is not just about us. It’s about our customers who we share it with and who provide us invaluable feedback to improve and incentive to keep going. It’s about our peers who share knowledge and recipes and tips and tricks. It’s about fellow competitors who we share a beer or glass of bourbon with at 2am while cooking for the next day’s contest. It’s about those who have come before us and those who will come after us, those who have taught us and those who will learn from us.

Pasatiempo Barbecue is our brand, but it’s only as good as shared with you.

And we can’t wait to share a bite, a drink, or even live music with you soon.