The Taste of Home

[Jedi_Master]

Taste and smell are two senses strongly tied to memory.

What smell and/or taste reminds you of where you grew up or your childhood?

If I smell orange blossoms or that strong smell that comes right before a rainstorm I am reminded of growing up near orange groves and sitting through the regular afternoon thunderstorm.

Anytime I eat some sugary cereal I am reminded of weekend mornings downing some sweet cereal before running off to play outside.

 

[Melakon]

Honeysuckle. Had a dog that would raise up on his hind legs to sniff them.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Coffee and cigarettes. My dad was never without either.

Diesel fumes. Takes me back to the years I lived in Japan.

Frying chickens. My mom made the best.

 

[Jedi_Master]

^ Diesel fumes take me back to when I was younger working on a large construction site. I enjoyed that job, and every time I smell them, I can hear the concrete trucks and feel the sun on my face.

 

[Melakon]

Frying chickens. My mom made the best.

Misread and thought it said flying chickens.

 

[Kirby]

Fresh cut grass and lawn mower exhaust. I mowed A LOT of lawns as a kid.

 

[thestrangequark]

Rain and damp. I love that smell. The combination of fried food and saltwater that you get in coastal cities. On a good day in Seattle it would waft all the way up to I-5. The smell of pipe tobacco, which is possibly my favorite aroma.

I feel like there are more, but I can't place my finger on them. It's so easy to create a picture in your head, or hear a song, or imagine the sense of heat or pain or dizziness, but smell is so illusive. It's the most potent trigger of memory, yet so often it seems that I can't remember it unless I am experiencing it.

 

[thestrangequark]

I thought of another, it's a really distinct and unique smell: hose water.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Bacon

 

[Pondwater]

Coffee and fumes.

 

[lurok]

Madeleines

Rain and damp. I love that smell.

Love petrichor too. And there's a similar one I've noticed particularly in LA when rain after a dry spell, and you get this petrol top note off the roads added into the mix.

Also love the smell of tar/pitch.

 

[Pingfah]

My parents ahd this abominably horrible smelling flower in the front garden, that you could always smell as you came up the drive in summer.

I can't remember what it is called now, but it is fairly common in the UK, yellow flowering weedy bush looking thing, smells musky and a bit like something burning.

 

[KimMH]

Pine sap because I grew up surrounded by Northern Michigan forest. Grandpa & Grandma next door kept chickens and pigs and cows so farm animals (poop.)

 

[trekkiedane]

The smell of that stuff they use to buff linoleum floors reminds me of the building my great grandparents lived in.

The smell of a hot soldering iron always reminds me of hours spend playing with electronics at my grandparents place.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I thought of another, it's a really distinct and unique smell: hose water.

A distinct taste too... during the never-ending Florida summer, we would be playing outside in the afternoon, and when we would get thirsty we would drink out of the hose. That water would be pretty hot as first, especially if the hose had sat in the sun all day.

 

[Sector 7]

Beer... my stepfather beat me after drinking, before drinking, during drinking. To this day, I cannot stomach the smell of beer.

 

[Kor]

Crispy bean burritos that are chewy like leather from sitting under a heat lamp all day, like they used to have at KMart twenty-something years ago.

Kor

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Sector:

Diesel fumes. Takes me back to the years I lived in Japan.

Takes me back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC, waiting for the bus after shopping in the city with my mother. Disgusting.

Green salads often remind me of my father. My mother did all the cooking, but my father always made the salad.

 

[J.T.B.]

Cap pistol smoke. Coal furnace smoke. Alfalfa hay and cow manure. Burned hair and cowhide. Baking bread in the morning. Hair "perm" chemicals.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hair "perm" chemicals.

That stuff was the worst. Don't know women could stand it.