Scents
I was in a waiting room, and it was full of woman’s magazines, so I had no choice. I picked up the least feminine one and saw an article that seemed interesting. The author was a young bride who felt sad because, no matter what she cooked, her husband said his mothers cooking was better. She even got his mom’s recipes and used them exactly as written, but to her husband, the dishes were still not up to the standard his mom had set from his childhood.
As I read the article I felt sorry for the sweet young bride who had married such an insensitive meathead, and wondered why the man just couldn’t praise his wife’s cooking too. Then I wondered if perhaps the bride’s mother-in-law was somehow purposefully omitting key ingredients in the recipes she gave to her trusting daughter-in-law.
I then recalled a scientific article concerning the impact our sense of smell makes upon our brains. The article proved that the first time we encounter a new scent, our brains make a stronger memory than any other of our five senses. It could be a pleasant smell or a bad smell, but we will have a stronger memory of it than any experience of our other senses. It seems that two specific areas of the brain, the hippocampus (concerned with memory formation) and amygdala (which causes us to feel emotion), are strongly stimulated by new scents. Smell is primal, and we react to it on a primitive, instinctual basis.
When I read the scent article, I identified with it immediately, because just the previous day I had inhaled a stray whiff of perfume while walking in the mall; and my mind had immediately returned to my first girlfriend’s neck, and how I felt when I gently kissed her there. I was amazed at the intensity of feeling a stray whiff of perfume had evoked in me; how I had been instantly transported back years in time to an emotional moment. That scent had indeed been impressed in my neurons, and it immediately elicited a strong emotional response.
Then, in a flash, I had one of those light-bulb-over-your-head moments, and.totally understood the article in the woman’s magazine. You see, the sense of taste and smell are inextricably linked. In fact, if you can’t smell a food item, it has very little taste. Most researchers say that up to seventy five percent of our ability to taste food depends directly upon out ability to smell the food. That’s why food is less appealing when you have a stuffy nose. If you can’t smell it, you really can’t taste it.
Do you remember the first time you smelled fresh baked bread? How about pumpkin pie? The scent of your first cup of coffee? And yes, the scent of your first lover? Are you ever instantly transported back in time when you smell similar scents?
I empathized with the poor bride’s predicament. To her husband, nothing will ever smell or taste as good as his childhood memories of his mom’s cooking. The poor bride would have to reprogram his brain.
Maybe a brick to the side of his head…
If a man has a complaint like that, he should keep it to himself. Why can’t people simply be grateful someone is cooking for them at all?
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i have actually tried holding my breath every time i eat, to see if it would make me crave food less. didn’t work. (i blame my overwhelming oral fixation. hur hur huuuuur.) the smell of speedstick and fabric softener makes me think of every guy i ever had a crush on high school. oh, and by the way, the smell of old spice completely makes me think of my FATHER.*ahem* (pleasestopusingthatstuffohmygodseriouslystopusingitnow!)
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also, if any guy EVER told me i didn’t measure up to his mom, under any circumstance, i would vomit IN HIS FACE and then punch him. in the neck. hard. and repeatedly. i mean, come on. get over the oedipal shit, already. good lord.
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*laughs* i think the brick to the side of the head would do wonders for the asshat. seriously… i would stop cooking and tell him to fend for himself as i had eaten already … out.. at some expensive restaurant… on his dime. i do have smells that trigger very interesting things. *smiles* music does it as well. lots of love to you rob!
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Scents and songs – two incredibly powerful things. Both of them can take me to a person or a time in an instant. Do you have a signature scent or song? ~
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aww thank you dear! they are doing the tb test on my sister (HA! i knew they should!) and she is having a heart cath tomorrow and a tube in her lungs on monday to check out the inflamed lymphnodes in her lungs, plus i hear her spleen is inflamed as well (that with the cough and low grade fever reminds me of when i had mono). i sure hope they find out what it is soon.
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I feel sorry for the young bride, the dude she married really is a block head when it comes to his wife’s cooking. It wouldn’t hurt him to say something nice to her; she cooks to please him after all.
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I’ve actually met one fantastic cook who *always* sabotages a recipe *if* she deigns to give one out. And then gloat over learning that the poor unsuspecting cook never can seem to get it to turn it right…
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It’s also why people with PTSD can have extremely strong flashbacks when they smell something that reminds them of the trauma. The hippocampus and amygdala are primed to help us survive (as you well know). Too bad that guy’s instinct for survival didn’t kick in to help him keep his mouth shut – lol.
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Brick to the head sounds about right! 🙂 Some women’s husbands…sheesh.
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RYN: Depends on one’s tastes. You could say it’s from ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (and I stress the original, not the remake). Or, if you’re cool like me, you could say it’s from ‘Army of Darkness’ for when Ash removed the Book of the Dead from its cradle in the graveyard. Although I think that was technically ‘Klatuu verata…nick*coughcoughcoughcough*’
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Sort of like the conversation I over heard at the local Subway shop. First guy: Nothing smells better then fresh baked bread. Second guy: My wife does.
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that alphahotel could cook his own damn dinner then.
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RYN: *dies* All things considered, I’m sure that’s not too terribly far off the mark, either. Joint Commission for Venereal Disease…
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she should stop trying so hard to be like his mother. there.
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