Do you mind if I smell this?
Memories evoked by odour & the after effects of radiotherapy.
Memories evoked by odour are significantly more emotional than those recalled by visual cues.
I have always smelt things.
Food, inanimate objects, plants, animals, people (there are some caveats here) it is kind of embarrassing to admit as I suspect it’s a bit perculiar to me.
As a child with a new Christmas or birthday present the first thing I would do is smell it, its imprint on my mind forever. Rather than visual appreciation, I was always about the smell factor first and foremostly. I identified things and objects by their smell.
Interestingly the gustatory system (the system of smell & taste) are referred to as chemosensory system (the irony does not escape me) but its the trauma that radiotherapy and chemotherapy caused me when I lost my sense of taste and along with it, for a very short time, my sense of smell.
It is a little discussed topic and one that sits squarely in my vocality around commensality. Social sharing of food.
My aroma (odour) detection improved or was refined when I became a chef and undertook wine making studies. Sniffing, drawing up liquid to my palate and allowing peach, vanilla, cherry, smoke, leather swirl over my olfactory system.
Picking individual odours to identify region, variety, soil (terroir), later tasting liquids to identify what flavour profile was missing or could add to the dish.
In fact if I had my time again I’d have actively pursued a career and life in making perfume, un parfumeur.