Fall is such an evocative season. Since it happens to be fall, and you caught me mid-evoke, let’s expound on that.
Last week I was walking by the realtors’ office downtown, housed in a 100+ year-old building, and their door was open. The scent coming out of the office was one I haven’t smelled in 30 years: it brought me back to my aunts’ and uncle’s immaculately-kept house. Quite inexplicably. And awesomely.
Then there was the time I heard Mario Batali on TV rhapsodizing about marjoram, an herb not used in my house growing up, nor in my own as an adult. I bought a jar of it, opened it, and time-travelled again: I was a toddler, it was 1973, and I was looking at a storybook that featured a bunny and scratch and sniff panels, one of which must have featured marjoram.
I never saw that coming. I hadn’t even remembered that book until I smelled that herb. Curious as to why the author included it; what an unusual choice. Again, though, not complaining. It was incredibly cool.
The smell of
…Grand Marnier will always and forever remind me of the copiously-spiked whipped cream my dad used to make.
…hot French fries and salt air means home.
…yeast means Easter bread. (I talk about this adventure a lot. Like a whole lot.)
…balsam brings me back to the living room of one of my childhood best friends.
…cinnamon means many things, but topping that list is my mom’s sour cream coffee cake. It won an honorable mention at the county fair one year; the judges’ only real quibble was that they wanted more of the gooey filling inside. (I have since, and wisely, doubled the filling. I know you’re all relieved to hear.) The picture above totally doesn’t do it justice because I don’t have a Bundt pan, which I’ll admit is egregious.
Where do smells take you?
Lovely post! Smells take me everything, from a childhood memory or a vacation I did outside of my country. The best smells for me are when you remember smelling something from your childhood but you can’t really grasp where it came from (I don’t know if I am making sense haha).
Hi Arielle–Thanks! And I know *exactly* what you mean. That’s what happened when I smelled marjoram: I knew it was from childhood, but it took me a while to place it lol
My grandparent’s house always smelled like baked bread. It always gives me the goose bumps every single time. Thanks for sharing this post. It really reminded me of my grandparents.
Hi Genessa–I’m so happy to hear you liked it, and how lucky you are to have such a wonderful memory of your grandparents. There’s not much that beats the smell of baked bread! 🙂
Curious thing though, why scents make us remember so much. 😄
It is…I read something, somewhere, that scientists think it’s the single most direct route to memory. I know it happens all the time to me!
Interesting you mentioned “the most direct route to memory” Marisa. Studies show that those with memory loss also loose some sense of smell (for some reason, even more so on the left side vs. the right).
Love this piece!
Hi Trina–Whoa–that’s really cool! Thanks for sharing–and thanks for the compliment. I’m so grateful to have your interest and input 🙂
Many years ago, during my vagabond days, I was in Seattle at the city’s famous Farmers Market and bought myself a slice of carrot cake from a vendor – it was very tasty and quite aromatic.
The following year, having settled back east in Boston, now painting houses with my friends, I found myself on swing staging, a couple of floors off the ground. I opened a new can of paint, dipped my brush in the can and as I moved the brush in front of me to start applying the paint, the smell of that carrot cake flooded my senses – the smell emanating from the fresh paint, now starting to drip off my paint brush.
I was stopped in my tracks by the smell . . . it lingered for about a minute and was so, so vivid . . . it was the same smell of that piece of carrot cake. . .I was dumbfounded and was transported back to market, while simultaneously swinging 20 to 30 feet off the ground. A dizzying experience to say the least, the memory of which has lingered to this day.
Hi Gregory–Love your story! What a surprise it must have been for you to relive that moment in such an unusual time and place. Glad you didn’t fall off the swing! I wonder what component was in the paint that was so similar to what’s in that carrot cake…?
Great memories, and what a way to remember some of them! I can’t believe marjoram in a child’s book, but that would be a wonderful way to introduce that into a child’s diet at an early age. Now, all I need is a way to get this to show up in my email, because it never shows up in my Reader.
Thanks, Angie! You clicked the button above that says, “I’m hungry! Sign me up!”, right? Nothing?
Btw, love your new bio on your profile!