Olfactory Recall

[Deleted]

The Horlick's thread and subsequent mention of Ovaltine brought to mind the phenomena of olfactory recall where the smell of some particular thing can trigger a memory or recall of the past,just as certain songs or sounds can (auditory recall).
One of the most vivid of these for me is the smell of creosote. My father used to take us fishing off this little bridge and we would spend the better part of the day there. The wooden pilings that supported the bridge were treated with creosote. To this day whenever I smell creosote I am transported back to that bridge in my childhood.

[Deleted]

I have quite a few olfactory memories, but they only come back if that particular odor is present. It can be a cleaning product, a baked good or even a smell of mildew. Such odors always take one back to childhood.

I can almost smell the creosote that you mention, casimira, because I fished in all of the same places. I could even add in the smell of putrifying shrimp bait slowing drying in the sun, and the slight resistance that it would give, trying to stick to the hot wood of a pier.

[spindrift]

And the smell of creosote takes me back to the years on my farm and the creosoting of endless fences.

[bazfaz]

The smell of pine trees in hot sun transports me to Greece.

[spindrift]

That's a lovely smell.

[bixaorellana]

When I was seven we visited my great-grandmother in northern Missouri. She took me up some narrow stairs into the attic in her house and opened a trunk in order to give me a book. There is a particular faint scent -- cashmere bouquet, maybe? -- that instantly transports me onto those stairs, climbing them behind Nana's long skirts.

Another trigger is entering a house where bell peppers have been cooking. It takes me right back to my godmother's house.

I think sometimes it's just one tiny element in a smell that flips a memory switch. In the early seventies I was on a quest for epazote (Mexican cooking herb) in the US. I found it growing as a weed and was very excited. But there was something about the smell that seemed distantly familiar. I gave some to one of my brothers and asked him if it reminded him of something. He quickly said -- "This is exactly what that kitchen drawer by the phone in Mama's house smells like!" I never figured out what smell-memory epazote was for me, but I'm sure it wasn't that kitchen drawer.

[rikita]

i connect a lot of memories to the smell of sun protection creme... so many though, that i always get confused as to what i am really remembering.

[Deleted]

I loathe hospitals. Yesterday before surgery I was fine,lying there in the room waiting for them to cart me away to pre-op. Then, I smelled THAT smell,can't pinpoint it exactly,sort of antiseptic,not a deodorizer,almost faint but distinct.
Anyway,up until then I was calm but upon smelling that odor I found myself increasingly anxious and was glad when they came to whisk me away.

[palesa]

Mar 25, 2009 1:39:03 GMT casimira said:

I loathe hospitals. Yesterday before surgery I was fine,lying there in the room waiting for them to cart me away to pre-op. Then, I smelled THAT smell,can't pinpoint it exactly,sort of antiseptic,not a deodorizer,almost faint but distinct.
Anyway,up until then I was calm but upon smelling that odor I found myself increasingly anxious and was glad when they came to whisk me away.

Know that smell and know what you are talking about.

[missalaska]

When doing aromatherapy it is critical to find out about particular scent dislikes - can totally destroy a treatment.

Love petrol mmmmm

[Deleted]

I like the smell of kerosene

[Deleted]

Is there anybody who can smell almond paste without thinking of primary school?

[Deleted]

Are you referring to that type of white glue? Then there's the smell of freshly mimeographed pages.
I knew classmates who used to try and eat that glue.

[Deleted]

Everybody at least tasted it.

[Deleted]

I did not.

[happytraveller]

I did not either. But loved the smell.
I like the smell of oil/fuel as it reminds me of one of my happiest childhood memories: Waiting at the port of Livorno for the ferry that would bring us to Corsica.

[bixaorellana]

Almond paste = white glue? You all must have gone to better schools than I did.

The very mention of the word kerosene (paraffin to Brits, I think) instantly transported me to another place and time.

My grandfather and uncle had a general store with two warehouses parallel to it. One was the original store building and sandwiched between the two was a skinny ware room. As you passed between the two larger buildings there was a good bit of light due to one end having a mesh wall. That was to ventilate the "coal oil pump". This was a metal receptacle designed to hold kerosene and hand pump it up. The ware room smelled of kerosene, but also of leather tackle and salt from the cattle licks and rope and the old wood of the building heating in the sun.

[lagatta]

I get olofactory recall in stairwells and entrances. Parisian stairwells have a distinctive odour - no, I don't mean if there is cooking, or rubbish, or anything disagreable, but a faint mixture of what? mildew, wax for wooden staircases and? Not referring to a nasty smell you can find anywhere.

In Perugia I lived in a block of flats that was many hundreds of years old - all stone and an even more particular odour.

Amsterdam markets have the sweet smell of stroopwafels and then the sharp iodic smell of hareng.

Here the arrival of spring brings people rushing out into the streets, happy as casimira's blue birdie, but also reveals great heaps of dogshit and festering cigarette ends...

[Deleted]

I also recall the odor of my grandparents' cellar in Lorraine. It was cool and damp down there, and the main smell was from the big pile of potatoes in the potato bin, and also the winter supply of apples, slowly wrinkling as they awaited being stewed or made into tarts. In my earlier childhood, there was also the "cheese cage" hanging from the ceiling so there was also the odor of camembert and munster. There were also dusty shelves filled with the jam and canned vegetables from the previous summer, as well as the bottle racks filled with my grandfather's finest purchases. It was an earthy and mysterious place under the dim clear lightbulb and there was absolutely nothing back home in America that could compare to it.

[Kimby]

I can go back to being a little kid by smelling Old Spice aftershave, which my Dad used years ago, and Tangee lipstick, the only lipstick my Mom has ever worn. When they are gone, I will be able to conjure up their memories, as have stashed away a tube of Tangee and a sample bottle of Old Spice...

[BigIain]

pine smell always takes me back 30odd years to a campsite near Frejus, south of France. Set in the pine forrests in the hills, it was a place for around 6 or 7 family summers.

[bazfaz]

The Paris metro used to have a most distinctive smell. The first day. going down on to the platform, and catching that smell - you knew you were there.
Where has that smell gone?

[Deleted]

My friend Jane, who died but not from that, always said the Paris Metro smelled like urine.

However, I think you are talking about the smell of ozone, from all of the sparking that used to occur.

[BigIain]

Another one that I noticed today actually. The smell of a carpet shop! I was walking past one which had its front doors open and walked through a pocket of the wonderful new carpet smell. Took me back to being maybe 7 or 8 and being dragged around shops by my folks who were choosing carpet tiles for a kitchen!

[Deleted]

I think we all know that certain smells can trigger memories that were perhaps long buried somewhere in the back of our minds.

So, I'm wondering, are there any particular smells that always bring a memory to the forefront for you?

[Deleted]

The smell of ozone always reminds me of the Paris metro, because there was still a lot of sparking on the third rail when I was a little boy.

[Deleted]

0zone? What does that smell like?

The smell of mashed potatoes and gravy always reminds me of school dinners....or hospitals.

[Deleted]

Ozone is sort of a burning electricity smell.

Your mashed potatoes and gravy just reminded me of the smell of Salisbury steak at the school cafeteria -- one of the most putrid stenches that I have ever had to endure.

[Deleted]

I can't stand the smell of Vodka either, I used to know someone who drank it, and the smell still makes me feel sick.

[bixaorellana]

There is a certain smell in a house, I think partly created by having fried bell peppers earlier in the day, that always transports me to my godmother's house. It's a good smell and a good memory.