When we lived in Chula Vista, California, some of my earliest food memories are pizza at an Italian restaurant my mom would occasionally take us to. It had those straw covered wine bottles with candles in them and the now old-fashioned red and white tablecloths. The pizzaiola would hand flip and stretch the crusts in the air. I remember that while I liked toppings, she sometimes limited us to cheese pizza because of the cost, and that she bought some sturdy red plastic glasses from the restaurant for us to use at home. I also remember becoming indignant when a waiter ignored my request for no dressing on my salad, and had to confirm it with my mother. I was a precocious child. Even today my favorite food is pizza or rib eye steak, both of which must be executed perfectly to qualify for the category of favorite.
Also from Chula Vista is the lemon trees and the apricot trees on the landlord's property we rented from and were allowed to eat all the fruit from the trees that we liked. I have never had better apricots. I usually don't even bother buying then in North Carolina, because the ones we get here are pale, pale ghosts of the sweet-tart perfumed specimens I cut my permanent teeth on.
Later, I remember the pork, and chicken from my grandparents' small family farm in Louisiana that I helped to raise and butcher. It was all free range, and the best I'm ever likely to eat. One of my aunts raised rabbits in hutches for meat and we got our share of that in exchange for chicken and pork. Free range goat was usually purchased from another farm for pit barbecue along with a couple of our own hogs for the big Fourth of July family reunions. We usually had around 200 people in attendance and folks brought potluck dishes, some really good, some not so much. There was so much food, who cared that my aunt's potato salad looked like yellow mashed potatoes?
Of course there were fresh vegetables from the garden too, but the great meats are what stick in my brain, and I'm not even much of a meat lover today, but that's probably because what I can usually afford are factory farmed excuses for meat. The ever present eggs were stellar too. One time Grandpa took a short trip into Texas and we came back with a pickup truck load of tree ripened peaches to sell from the truck bed parked under one of the ancient oak trees in the front yard. Us kids were allowed to eat all the fragrant, juicy peaches we wanted! My aunt took us one time to pick purple hull peas from a pick and pay field. These were memorable, and I just bought some frozen ones and have a stash in the freezer. They might even come up to the level of the memory. We shall see. Oh, and crawdad boils! We kids got them from the cattle ponds.
In Vermont, I remember the sugar houses in early spring, and the great and relatively inexpensive maple syrup. I can still get maple syrup sometimes. I am hoarding a small bottle from Trader Joe's in the fridge now. There is no way to reproduce drinking the sparkling clear, slightly sweet and ice cold unprocessed sap from a collection bucket hanging under the tap of a majestic maple in the Vermont woods now. We had home grown veggies there too. There was a "hippie" goat farm down the road. I went to school with one of the daughters. We bought some of their excellent goat cheese sometimes. I didn't care for the milk though, when I tried it when sleeping over one night. It was a sad memory when one of the pregnant nannies got lost outside during a blizzard, gave birth, and her two kids lost the tips of their ears to frostbite. 
Could have been worse, though, I guess in that brutal climate, and I seemed to mind it more than the happy, playful little goatlings did. Baby goats are CUTE!
In Toronto Ontario, there were a bunch of (good to me at the time) take out places near where I worked where I usually ate. One had the funny name of Takee-Outee, and I loved the stuff on sticks and other things I didn't have any experience with. I think that was my first experience with an eggroll.
On my way back to the states, I stopped in Windsor, Canada for a week or so, and there was a smorgasbord restaurant just across the road from my motel. They had many, many dishes on the buffet, and dang they were good! I was in a food wonderland after my modest farm beginnings.
My (really good) restaurant experience only starts after I got out on my own in Memphis. I didn't have much restaurant experience at all or culinary horizons beyond the "Betty Crocker Cookbook" until then. Sorry I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I do remember some of the dishes I had there. There was a "Mobile Shrimp Dinner" that was shrimp done four ways, and I was always devising ways to get there and eat this dish. One day, at this same restaurant, the daily lunch special was spaghetti with shrimp in garlic butter. My young and ignorant self stood for several seconds on the sidewalk staring at the chalkboard near the entrance stunned by the genius of this chef, and of course, that is what I ordered. I had never dreamed of pasta and shrimp in the same dish.
I had many memorable meals at the Hungry Fisherman, which was right over the Mississippi state line from Memphis. They specialized in all you can eat seafood. It's also where I had my virgin lobster experience. I was kind of insulted when the waitress pinned a paper bib around my neck, but I got with the program quickly after I started cracking into the beast and stuff went flying everywhere. 
One of the funnest parts was going out on the huge deck out back and feeding your leftover fries and hushpuppies to the ducks, geese, swans and koi that lived in and on/around the large pond/small lake that abutted the restaurant. They had floodlights aiming down so you could see the beautiful fish and birds.
Another food memory that really sticks is Shakey's Pizza buffet, of which there were several in Memphis, including one handy to my first real job for lunch. I know it's pedestrian to some of you food connoisseurs, but let me tell you that for a young active woman with high metabolism, buffets were the bomb! The pizza, salad and fried chicken were all very good. There was live entertainment at night too, and beer. Well they probably had beer at lunch too, but I needed to keep that job. 