POSSIBLY THE FINAL WORD ON SMELLS, BUT PROBABLY NOT.

The great state of Maine has banned flavoured (aromatic) tobaccos, in which noble action it joins Marin, San Francisco, and several other places. Because flavoured tobaccos only appeal to children, many of whom are led astray by Lord Of The Rings and other deviant literature, and wish to emulate Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf.

As well as crusty old men who reek of stale clothing odours, vanilla, and fruitloops.
I always advise folks to stay away from those types.
Some people don't listen.


There is a swarm of children waiting outside tobacco shops to buy the following products.
You must beat them away with a stick if you wish to go inside.
They bite, and spread rabies.


CLAN
Virtually unsmokeable, and once very popular among bright young teenagers.

ENNERDALE FLAKE
A thoroughly nasty product that smells like cheap perfume, applied with a bucket. Yeah no, this is extremely horrid. And very popular in its niche. I finished a whole tin of it (fifty grammes, two dozen bowls).

ERINMORE FLAKE
The granddaddy of perfumed tobacco. Smells like Christmas cake and pineapples. It made me puke many years ago. I actually have a year's supply stashed for a degenerate day.
I'm still sane and balanced at present.

CAPTAIN BLACK
The most popular pipe tobacco in America, the archetype of flavoured cavendish.
What miserable winters indoors with your relatives smell like.

CAPTAIN BLACK GRAPE
Clean-smoking, nearly bite-free. And no discernable tobacco taste whatsoever.
The room note is very candylike.
An oddity.

FLYING DUTCHMAN
Horrid. Fruit salad and toffee. Hot, twiggy, nasty, wet.

FOUNDERS RESERVE
Allegedly "inspired" by single malts, but oddly reminiscent of rotting apples. Rather decent.

DA VINCI
Flavoured with cheap dessert wine. Once the tin has been opened it slowly starts smelling like fruity Limburger. After three months it is exceedingly repulsive. Very odd, almost unsmokeable. Recently a friend expressed interest in aromatic pipe tobaccos, so I recommended it.

MIXTURE 79
A classic, deservedly, but painful to smoke. It smells like aftershave, and is so chemically overdosed that it can never dry out. It was an incredibly unpleasant experience.
Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby liked it.

MOLTO DOLCE
Defies belief. Very popular among people who are miles away from a decent tobacconist, very sweet. Honey, caramel, vanillin, chocolate, and underneath it all, perhaps as a fixative, coconut. Perhaps also almond. It can cause severe tongue bite.
It does not dry. Ever.

MOUNTAIN PASS
Why anyone would conceive of adding creamy vanilla custard to tobacco is beyond me.
It smokes relativly clean, and non-smokers often love it.

SHANNON
A mostly blonde ribbon tobacco drenched in melon. The Irish should sue for defamation, but they smoke weird crap anyway, and aren't paying attention. It's smooth, though repulsive.

SEVEN SEAS REGULAR
Smoked nearly one third of the bowl, then tipped the remainder out into the rubbish and went to have lunch. Cocoa and rotten fruit, with vanilla and syrup.

TROOST SLICES
Flavoured with caramel and perhaps a hint of chocolate, on a base of steamed aircured leaf. Not bad, but monodimensional and dull. What an old school mate of my mother smoked when he was in Holland.

It's complex. Largely I disapprove of aromatic pipe tobaccos, but for some people it's exactly the aroma they remember from their childhood and aged relatives. My father and other men did not truck with them, and because they can stink-up a pipe I tend to avoid them.

According to the civic minded busybodies of Maine, Marin County, and San Francisco, they are irresistible to children. A bizarre concept.

I am seldom around children. I think they disapprove of me. And as for civic minded busybodies, those are not part of my circle. So the only ones likely to be adversely influenced by my horrid example are people in the medical profession, who might soon consider smoking a pipe to be stress-relieving, a fascinating past-time, and on the whole not nearly as objectionable as they had always assumed.

Oh, and hippies looking for something clean and pure.
Such as Latakia, Turkish, and Virginias.
Or lovely flakes.


Goes well with a spot of tea.
And a good book.

TOBACCO INDEX


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I'M SORRY, THIS MAY SMELL A BIT ...

One of the tropes I've occasionally used both in sneer and wicked humour has been your maiden aunt's lingerie drawer. Which smells richly of expensive soaps, French lavender, perhaps hints of cedar and roses. I often describe Lakeland tobaccos as having that whiff.
It was actually what the sock drawers in our house smelled like when I was a child.
The odour allegedly kept the moths away. I don't know if it works.


"There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts."
Ophelia in Hamlet, the madness of scene five, act four.


Rosemary; a kitchen smell, evocative, comforting. Especially when combined with caramelized onions and a touch of garlic, as well as the wine used to seethe the meat in the pan after browning. The kind of aroma that takes you back to France.

Smells bring forth the past. The clean clean odour of a doctor's office, the chalk and pencil shavings of a grammar school classroom, the coffee roasting from the nearby Trieste in North Beach, buttery bakery odours at a popular coffee shop in Chinatown, ghostly whiffs of shrimp paste and sandalwood incense in grocery stores, intense green scents and a mere hint of durian at vegetable markets ......

It's early summer. Bright, but not hot. Mildly warm. Washington Square Park will be nice.


A commenter recently dwelt on perfumes.

Lady Ignatia J. Reilly said...
I remember my Zayde smelling distinctly of 4711. He quit smoking before I was born.
I remember him quite fondly and this is probably why I wear it; my Bubbe's chosen fragrance of Elizabeth Arden's Red Door was too feminine for me (I was a tomboy) and my mother's chosen fragrance of Shalimar is too sultry for a confirmed spinster of a literary bent.

4711
Top notes: Lemon, bergamot, orange, basil, peach.
Middle notes: Jasmine, lilies, cyclamen, rose.
Base notes: Oakmoss, vetiver, cedar, pogostemon, sandalwood, musk.

Elizabeth Arden's Red Door
Top notes: Lily of the valley, freesia, violet, plum, anise.
Middle notes: Roses, orange flower, jasmine, carnation, ylang ylang.
Base notes: Oak moss, sandalwood, heliotrope, benzoin.

Shalimar, by Guerlain
Top notes: Bergamot, lemon, mandarin orange.
Middle notes: Iris, jasmine, rose, opopanax patchouli, vetiver.
Base notes: Sandalwood, oakmoss, musk, tonquin, vanilla.


Evocative fragrances that bring back some lovely memories: Jasmine tea, thyme, certain metal alloys (drafting tools), dark shag tobacco (Holland), wood waxes, forsythia, camphor in Chinese stick ink, old books, autumn fruits and wet leaves, cut ginger, real Syrian Latakia.

Syrian Latakia was Shek El Bint ("the maiden's cleft"), a mutant relative of Burley, with medium-sized leaves and a sherry-like undertone. Smoke curing made it more resinous, sharper.
Cyprus Latakia is softer, more 'perfumy', indistinct.

A smell twixt plums and incense for many tobacco blends.
Stone fruits, mown hay, peatiness, woodsy, herbal.

Dried citrus fruits also resonate. It's a very subtle set of fragrances, as the richest essences have fled the peel during drying, and only centre scents remain.
Smells are inherently sensual.


Printing equipment and book binding supplies: various schools and workshops. And for some reason I cannot explain I remember them all as having an abundant share of light, both electric and natural. It may have been the walls (white) or the windows.

Cinnamon, coriander seeds, green cardamom.
Mace. Fenugreek. Toasted cumin.


As a tobacco related lagniappe, I cannot recall the odour of everyone's favourite McClelland tobacco. It did not make a sufficient impression.

Remarkable, when you consider that tobaccos, like tea, and graphics materials, have been so dominant in my life. There were cigar factories in the town where I grew up, and fermenting leaves perfumed the air one breathed, more so the closer one got to Willem II or Hofnar.
Cynically, I'd have to say that Frog Morton must have had a room note pleasing to vegetarians and spiritual people. The non-smoking puritanical relatives.

I cannot recall the smell at all.
Sorry, I've tried.


However, I can acutely remember some pretty horrid stinks.
That vile crap Brian was smoking last year.
It was a Danish product.

TOBACCO INDEX


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DENSE, AND SMELLY; WATTISH!

An internet meme yesterday mentioned the word 鬱 ("depression").

Naturally, as a neurotic man with a linguistic bent, I had to leave a comment underneath.


鬱

鬱 Luxuriant; moody, melancholy. Top part: a tree (木 ) on either side of a ceramic item (缶). Then an enclosure or lid (冖), underneath which are a vat of brewing alcohol and a ladle (鬯 meaning by itself: liquor used ritually), next to three tiger stripes indicating 'variegated'. A total of twenty nine strokes. Most Chinese characters will fall between eight and twenty strokes, more or less, and are far less likely to yield an unintelligible ink blob when brush-written. Except for many characters used to represent Cantonese terms.....
The Cantonese take perverse pride in confounding clumsy Northerners.


The vast majority of characters will be under twenty strokes. There are rather few that are over thirty. If one recognizes the parts of characters one can often figure out why they mean what they mean, and many component clusters function as phonetic elements, giving strong clues to the sound.

There are 214 basic building blocks. There are around four or five hundred common phonetic elements. And there are compound words consisting of two or more characters, slightly more in Mandarin than in Cantonese. Some characters, like the one shown above, do double or triple duty, giving meanings that are different and must be read contextually.

A deciduous tree might describe itself as 'luxuriant' in foliage, whereas a human being might be moody and angst-ridden (多愁善感 'dou sau sin gam') or 鬱鬱寡歡 ('wat wat gwaa fun').

抑鬱症 ('yik wat jing') clinical depression.
憂鬱啲 ('yau wat di'): peevish, sullen.
鬱金香 ('wat kam heung'): tulip.

灪 ('wat'): impressive of appearance, majestic; high, steep; vast; an immense ocean wave.



I am rarely depressed. Being Dutch, I am more like a tulip. Much more.
Luxuriously gilded fragrance.


灪灪。



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SMELLY SIDE TRACK

In one of the pipe groups somebody forwarded a recipe called "Ghost of Frog Morton". With a lovely illustration, which was the only reason I looked at it. What with not being one of the aficionados of that blend of pipe tobacco, and having a mild affection for McClelland tobaccos at best (except for the Syrian Three Oaks, which they made according to the recipe by Tad Gage, which was truly one of the best darn tobaccos out there, and is sorely missed).

Illustration by Jean-Baptiste Monge

Ghost of FM recipe: Equal parts Lane HGL and Stokkebye No. 17 English Luxury.

Jean-Baptiste Monge (born June 11, 1971 in Nantes) is a brilliant French fantasy author and illustrator living in Quebec.


Lane HGL: "Toasted cavendish is laced with mountain Latakia, then blended with white burley and golden Virginia to produce a sweet, fuller-bodied smoke, yet cool and slow burning. The Lat is used as a condiment, not to build a Lat-bomb."
[Source: Tobacco Reviews]
Mild on the Latakia side, notes of caramel and raisins. Leathery, with the faintest whiff of vanilla, which may or may not be an additive.

Stokkeby No. 17 English Luxury: "A characteristic English mixture, developed from mellow Georgian Virginias, black cavendish, Mexican burleys and Cyprian Latakia, a classic. Mild to medium strength."
[Source: Tobacco Reviews]
A mild-medium English, slightly sweet. The Burley is noticeable.

Frog Morton by McClellands was a mild-medium English, pronounced Latakia nose. Woodsy, but mild and sweet enough that it appealled to many people. Syrian Three Oaks (Tad Gage) was full Latakia, profoundly old-fashioned, a mixture of great depth. It added clarity and brilliance to life. I still have over a dozen tins of it, boruch Hashem.


When your favourite tobacco disappears from the marketplace, it leaves a hole in the universe. Almost three years after McClelland decided to hang up their spurs people still grieve over their passing, and try to recapture the magic effect that they felt for so long. It's rather like the classic Coke versus new Coke situation, or that HK Chinese woman who lamented the disappearance of a favourite brand of golden treacle which was necessary for her family's traditional recipe of Christmas pudding.

In every life there will be substitutions.

'The flies today don't taste the same, ribbit, and their fuzz is less than it used to be.Things have changed, ribbit. And not for the better. Ribbit. Tell ya what.
You tadpoles nowadays! Ribbit.'

Presently engaged on a second cup of coffee, with some lovely golden flake in a briar pipe that is older than me, and putzing around the apartment. Yesterday I threw out a whole garbage bag full of empty tobacco tins, there will be more of them today. Souvenirs in a way, but unnecessary clutter.

TOBACCO INDEX


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TAR, WOODSMOKE, AND A FLOWER BASKET

Under an essay in which I mentioned Anita Mui (Voluptuous Fragrances, reader Cecily asked "Out of curiosity, are there any scents on the market you would describe as 'voluptuous'?"

Well. It has been a very long time since I smelled a woman. Seeing as my faint whiff of tobacco and the fires of hell chases the poor dears away from me, and as a smoker my nose buds are not functioning at top form. That latter situation is perfect for a city like San Francisco, where many of the downtown intersections pong of sewer, and several streets have their own idiosyncratic odours. Hang Ah Alley, for instance, last night reeked of riotous drunken excess meeting reality.

But in any case, I do not go around sniffing at the tender gender. It would be bad form to do so. As well as get me clobbered over the head.
But intellectually, I would indeed like to.

It sounds zesty and heroic.


In response to Cecily: Very likely candidates: Black Opium, by YSL. Paris, by YSL. Crystal Noir, by Versace. Perfumes with citrus and spices top notes, floral middle notes, wood or moss base notes. If it smells recognizably of coconut, candy, or Hello Kitty, it's right out.

Besides coconut, other smells to avoid are patchouli and almond, and an excess of vanilla.

Good, but not in excess: jasmine, cedar, rose.

Sandalwood can be nice too.


As an afterthought, crowded San Francisco buses are the worst place in the world for scents. If you are lucky, White Flower Lotion (白花油) and other analgesic balms on the old people in the front, with hints of body spray from the hunkus in the back; if unlucky, marijuana smoke, drug addict, unwashed Eury tourist, Hang Ah Alley, and Market Street.



Curry, plus Latakia and Virginia pipe tobaccos, always smell delightful. But not dumped all over the person as personal perfumes. And roasting or freshly brewed coffee in the morning also. Bacon too.





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IT SMELLS A BIT

In discussing smells I half remembered people and places from the distant past. Having grown up in North Brabant, where my parents moved the family when I was five years old, some aromas are deep-seated and vibrant. Dead Autumn leaves. Fresh strong coffee. Gasoline. Tar. Cow dung. Maryland ribbon ("baai") smoked in a pipe. Frying chili paste, because everything goes with sambal. Sweet Indonesian style soy sauce. Coriander seed powder ("ketoembar") and ground nutmeg added to meat dishes on the stove. Lemons, and over-ripe Autumn fruits. Zware shag tobacco.

[Lived in the Netherlands since I was two. First three years in Utrecht province.]

During the rainy time of year, wet woollen clothes.
You know, soggy classmates and sweaters.
Still damp at the end of the day.

The eastern end of North Brabant reeks a little. It's a moist part of the world, with peat bogs, oaks, pine trees, and rich evocative stenches.


"They've got cows there, boy, what do you think it smells like?!?"
---Bucko James, in Gentlemen Wear Lace


Valkenswaard of course also smelled of cigar factories -- a smell I love -- as did Eindhoven near the old Karel 1 factory, whereas in my mind Tilburg must pong of pee (cloth industry) and Breda of drunken soldiers. Weert, Aalst, and Leende are all beer and frying potatoes, Dommelen for some reason is fresh coffee and hay. But aroma-wise the entire area was dense and fecund; things grow there. No burning hills, like Northern Califonia where I live now (a dry sterile odour), or antique sewers (the SF Financial District), or unwashed crazy people. Or the peculiar funk of druggies.

The perfume of cigar leaf hung over Valkenswaard, almost always present in the background, dominating the closer you got to Willem II or Hofnar. Thick, velvety, a bit sharp. Besuki filler ("binnengoed"), Sumatra wrapper ("dekblad"), a touch of Brazil for spice.

The town had grown prosperous because of the cigar industry.
Paved streets, running water, electricity, education.
Nowadays not a single cigar is rolled there.

What does it smell like now?




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THE NASAL TOURIST

One of the things that stays with you longest when you visit a place are the signature smells. And how sad it would be if what you remember best about San Francisco is the reek of marijuana and urine along Market Street and the many facets of Roman sewer from ancient plumbing under the streets in the financial district, which is strong and startling at very many intersections from Market Street north to Clay, especially eastwards of Sansome.


SWEAT SHOP MONKEY

Or, most robust of all, a computer programmer up for nearly two weeks on a project, who has consumed hot pockets, burritos from the truck, taco chips, fries, energy drinks, candy bars ... He's unwashed, unrested, and exuding all of that plus snack and soda spillage from his skin and clothes.

With any luck he's popped a few caffeine pills and is now next to you on a bus with his colleagues, as they drunkenly discuss the Giants and great big boobies, oh baby. It's a foetid pong from somewhere between wild-eyed curry-continental and the gluey processed cheese heartland that is the Mid West, with heavy doses of bad-boy body-spray, endocrine systems out of whack from not enough sleep and zero nutrition whatsoever for several weeks, and a mega serving of molokhia with friends at the secret Coptic church and eatery hidden beneath the underground parking garage.

Okay, that last is more than likely stream-of-consciousness. Still. Garlic and Redbull. It's a life-style. Most programmers are unlikable, whether they are named Rajbood from Hyderabad, Mahmood from Alexandria, or just John the pudgy dude from Ohio. It's that addiction to energy drinks and video games, it twists the mind. Almost as bad as a methamphetamine habit for screwing someone up physically and mentally.

We've got those people too.
Plus sweaty yoga freaks.
With putrid mats.


My point is that you want better memory smells of the city.


Wherefore I have some suggestions.


THE PERFUMED BOUDOIR

The diagonal path across Sue Bierman Park has some lovely floral reeks, from the various plants that profuse alongside. The smell of roasting coffee in North Beach, along with hints of patchouli (still used there and in a few small pockets elsewhere in the city) is especially nice in the morning.

If you wander around at the higher reaches of Nob, Telegraph, and Russian Hill you will encounter fewer crazy people, less dog poo, and many more patches of nasturtium, bougainvillea, lillies, and resinous wild herbs.

Golden Gate Park, during daylight hours, presents a rich palette of vegetal aromas, almost any area away from the wharf will lack that characteristic sour odour of discarded bread bowls and spilled chowder, late at night the magic aroma of grilled onions and bacon-wrapped hot dog along Mission Street may charm you (also elsewhere near bars on the weekend, after midnight), parts of the Presidio are riotous with fresh smells, and if you avoid Ocean Beach you may never nose a dead leviathan.

Eucalyptus in the panhandle.
The rose garden in the park.
Fresh garlic, Belden Alley.
Slowly cooking carnitas.

And please, smell your food, not your neighbor.


Unless you want to.



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IT SMELLS LOVELY, DON'T YOU AGREE?

Some habits are constant, because they are more than the sum of their parts. Often there is an underlying psychological element that plays in the background, often also a feel-good aspect.
And almost all of them are smelly.

I like rainy days because the perfumes and aromas are more intense, more earthy. Sometimes an elevator filled with soggy office workers is exactly right. That young lady's indiscreet trollop odeur, the fat middle-aged man over there still echoing his salami and mustard sandwich, those two clerical types and their profound reek of wet dog......
Is that Aramis? Bay Rum? L'Eau d'Issey Pour Homme?
From further down I can also smell leather.
There's Mink Oil on the surface.

The first real storm of the season is always welcome. After a downpour there's a freshness to the air in San Francisco, and for a brief while the Roman sewer reek of intersections in the Financial District is subdued.


CONSTANT HABITS FOR A RAINY CLIMATE

In the Netherlands, when I still lived there, cafes were dark and quiet during the rain. You could look out over the rainy street while savoring a cup of coffee and smoking your pipe. The door would often be left open so that fresh air and the fragrance of the trees lining the bicycle path in front would waft in, and sundry smells carried forth by moisture.
Holland is a wet place at any time of years.
Smells are deeper there.

At home, from the room looking out over the courtyard and the garden, scents of tea and tobacco mingled with the apples rotting in the grass. Sweetness, a semi-floral quality, and a pungent ferment.
Among it all a scent of leaves, the dead and the green.


When I stayed in North Beach near the Caffe Trieste the smell of roasting coffee early in the day was a constant, even more evocative in rain.
The reek of the actual streets was less lovely.

I stopped going to the Trieste every day several years ago. You cannot smoke there anymore (or anywhere else), and the number of pretentious dingos has increased. It is still a wonderful place, but the chances that someone will say something meaningful, or that you might encounter a poet, are far too great to take regular risks.

They still have the best coffee beverages in San Francisco.

Despite the plethora of Starbucks.


Coffee, tea, tobacco. Nice reeky habits, the marks of civilization. Bitter black, resinous fumes, and crisp green or tangy-fruited oolong.

Hot cocoa is also up there. Ink, machine oils, tar, wax, and other industrial age nasal refracta likewise rank high. The smell of a noodle shop is always richly evocative. Dreams of slithery comfort in the vapour from the bowl in front of you, clanging from the kitchen, and lots of tea.


If smells don't turn you on, or spark intense moods and memories, there is a very good chance that you are defective. Emotionally crippled.
You probably drink decaf, don't smoke, and belly-ache a lot.
Plus everything irritates you, especially people.
I relish that, because I smell.

Here are some things in my living quarters that will piss you off:

Tea. Coffee. Cigars. Pipe tobacco. Seal-ink. Sumi-e ink. Sandalwood incense. Agar-wood incense. Snow pear incense. Dusty books. Dust. White flower oil. Toasted chilies. Spanish cedar. Wood polish. Garlic. Ginger. Limes. Dried tangerine peel. Turmeric and curry spices.
Cardamom. Nutmeg. Clove.

By the way: you wouldn't believe how wonderful and intense the metal alloys of good drafting equipment smell.


No wonder that most dogs instinctively like me.
It's their recognition of our similarities.
Except for the butt sniffing.
That's just them.


I look forward to the rain.




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越香 -- VIET HUONG AND OTHER FLAVOURS

Several years ago, when Savage Kitten and I were still an item, she walked into the kitchen just after I had prepared myself a tasty snack.
I was reminded of this by a posting on the Facebook page of a friend, who praised Viet Huong Three Crabs Brand Premium Fish Sauce. What makes Viet Huong so special is that they use the first dewy extraction after eighteen months of slow fermentation, yielding an "all-purpose natural seasoning that enhances the flavor of your favorite dishes".

There's nothing like an authentic fish sauce for adding oomph to your food, and omitting it leads to empty lives and broken homes.

I heartily recommend Viet Huong's Three Crabs Brand.


越香三蟹嘜上等頭遍魚露
['yuet heung saam haai mak seung dang tau pin yü lou']

Savage Kitten, on the other hand, might have other thoughts. Her reaction upon entering that day was to recoil, shrieking "good Lord it smells of c*nt in here! Did you fry up a bucket of dead c**tchie?!?"

Even after I clarified that it was merely pork chunks, a little brown sugar, chilies, and garlic, with lime juice and fish sauce, to go with my rice, she ranted on about elderly Asian women in downtown clothing stores who stank of fish. "Take a bath sometime, auntie, and PLEASE use sponge on a stick for your hard to reach squidgy parts!"

My ex is Cantonese; she can say these things.

I still appreciate her eloquence.

She's quite remarkable.

Expressive.

But she is perhaps far too refined and genteel to thoroughly appreciate good fish sauce (魚露 'yü lou'). Which Three Crabs brand (三蟹嘜 'saam haai mak') by Viet Huong Company Limited (越香有限公司 'yuet heung yau haan gung si') most certainly is.

Well-bred Cantonese people have problems with assertive smells like durian, cheese, white people, and fish sauce.

For the interested, here are addresses for Viet Huong:


越香有限公司
越香大廈
香港，新界，
屯門，海華路28號。
[Viet Huong Company Ltd., Viet Huong Building, 28 Hoi Wah Road, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong.]

In the United States:

Viet Huong Fishsauce Company Inc.
5990, 3rd Street,San Francisco CA 94124 U.S.A
Tel: (415) 822 0612

Note: In the Netherlands, please contact: Mijnheer Herman Kuijper, Noorddammerweg 91b, 1187 ZS Amstelveen, The Nederlands. Tel: (31) 0206452988. OR: Nivo Im- en Export Beverwijk B.V., Schieland 8, 1948 RM Beverwijk, The Netherlands. Tel: (31) 0251215585.

[Viet Huong was founded in San Francisco in 1984. At present their main operation is based in Hong Kong, with factories in Vietnam and Thailand. In addition to the original Three Crabs, they make a range of other fish sauces.]


Savage Kitten (my ex) vociferously denies that she EVER said anything like what I quoted above. But I remember it quite well. It was the same week that she gave a durian to one of her white co-workers, perhaps to piss-off the Filippinas she works with.


HOLY CRAP, WHITE MAN!

Last week she walked into the kitchen after I had fixed myself something to eat, and said "hey why does it STINK of dead fish in here g*ddamn what have you been doing smelly old toad?" I believe she suspects me of perversion. Which, given that we have been merely apartment mates for four years now since our breakup, and I have been a single man all that time, is perhaps not an unnatural or unreasonable supposition.
Single men are known for eccentric behaviour.

In fact, I had not committed a perversion.

Not even close.

[Perversion: 變態的事 'pin taai dik si'. Perverted: 變態的 'pin taai dik'. Sexual perversion: 性變態 'sing pin taai'. Culinary perversion: 西方菜 'sai fong choi'.]

I had cooked up some meatballs (肉丸 'yiuk yuen') and spinach (菠菜 'po choi') with red curry paste(紅咖喱膏 'hung gaa lei gou'), shrimp sauce (鹹蝦醬 ' haahm haa jeung') from Lee Kum Kee (李錦記), and crumbled peanuts (碎花生 'suei faa sang'), over rice stick noodles (米粉 'mai fan'), chicken broth and lime juice added.
Repeat: not perversion.
Food.


Lee Kum Kee's Shrimp Sauce 李錦記的蝦醬 ('lei kam kei dik haa jeung') is velvety smooth-smooth and slickitty-slick (幼幼滑滑 'yau yau gwat gwat').
You need it for your healthy life style (健康嘅生活方式 'gin hong ge saang wut fong sik').


李錦記公司
香港，新界，
大埔工業村，大發街2-4號。

電話: 852-26603600
圖文傳真: 852-26658005

[Lee Kum Kee, 2-4 Dai Fat Street, Tai Po Industrial Estate, Hong Kong. Tel: 852-26603600. Fax: 852-26658005.]


Three Crabs Brand Fish Sauce and Lee Kum Kee Fine Shrimp Sauce can be found at quality stores all over the civilized world, and perhaps even in Europe, rather like Gentleman's Relish.

I suspect that both fish sauce and shrimp sauce may be too objectionable for many women. Too robust, even. Strictly hearty white bachelor stuff.
It's that refined Cantonese femininity; hard to live with.
Hard to live without.



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SMELLS LIKE FOREST FIRES

It started raining while I was contemplating my navel on Friday. Meaning that I was taking a long soak in the bath, with the window open for ventilation, when water began to precipitate from the sky. Which is disturbing only when you consider that it is already the end of April, not if you realize we need the rain.
This blogger encourages Mother Nature to continue taking a leak over Northern California; I am all about female empowerment.
Let it flow, so to speak.
Enough of drought.

I envisioned an afternoon of lurking in sheltered doorways with my pipe. Because my apartment mate comes home around seven on Friday, the place needs to start airing out at around two o'clock, so I cannot smoke while plonking on the computer in the afternoon. It's sad, but these days a pipe-habit is not considered über-cool anymore. Serious intellectuals and charming celebrities do not have pipes in their mouths.
Somebody's long-dead grandpa still does.
But he's out in the rain.

I blame armpit deodorant; it made us neurotic about smells.


THE TRAIN TO BATH

Mathilde had the railway carriage all to herself. Outside, the summer downpour cast a grey hue over the green of England, obscuring fields and copses of trees where there were flickering lights despite the time of day. It was not even teatime! But it seemed dark, dark and gloomy.

What a pity Rupert wasn't with her. His unit was somewhere in France, fighting the Beastly Hun, and while she hoped he would be home again soon it didn't look like it. It would have been so nice to sit down with him over porcelain cups, the clink of China and soft happy conversation in her ears instead of the drub of the downpour and the rumble-rumble of the train.

England was such a gloomy place without his company.
And he looked so very dashing in his uniform!
With a pipe jauntily sticking out.
She missed his stench.

Indeed, she would give anything in the world for a whisp of his Golden Virginia and grubby tweeds. Familiar smells gave great comfort.
The train simply whiffed of coal and armpits.
Bath, where she was going, was not a pleasant city. Bad buns, and dry crackers with Stilton. There was a reek of sulfur about the place. She supposed that was due to the elderly military men who had retired there. Too old to go to the front, not old enough to keep their hands to themselves.
Claret-sodden cigar smokers, with fits of groping.
Wolves amid the splendour.

Her Maiden aunt had requested that she come. There would be no gaiety while she stayed, as the woman disapproved of dances, dinner parties, smoking, and all manner of intemperance.
Her man Rupert was such a great dancer!
She hoped he didn't loose a leg.
That would be awful.
○


THOSE WICKED FRENCH AUTHORS!

Amelia didn't really like cocktail parties, the company was always so superficial! But the library of the Jambonne's country cottage was utterly splendid, and because it was on the third floor of the mansion, it would be a lovely place to hide while her parents socialized.
Far from the frenetic rowdiness.
And horrid noise.

She looked forward to reading some of the risqué French novels that old man Jambonne collected, while chainsmoking cigarettes. Lucy Jambonne was a college classmate, and so very very considerate. While the adults were downstairs jollifying over gin and vermouth, the two of them could quietly roam the library, not talking, just reading and systematically emptying the contents of the cigarette caskets filled with Khedive and Kyriazi Frères (both were Turkish ovals) that Lucy's grandpa liked to have scattered about. There would be tea and scones, possibly even sweet buns, and perhaps later a bottle of Port or Bordeaux, sent up with some cheese and Bath Olivers to snack on.
Time would pass so quickly!

If she were a man, Amelia supposed she'd probably like Lucy even more. She always looked so dashing with her tight sweaters and plaid skirts. And always, always, those cigarettes. Very modern!
She envied Lucy's self-possession.
As well as her slimness.
Luscious!

Later both of them would fell asleep in armchairs near the fire, each covered with a throw rug. The housekeeper would discover them the next morning, snoring gently and still reeking of the cigarettes.
That, in all ways, would be a perfect party.
No Martinis or music, just books.
And enough to smoke.
Plus cheese.
○


WE SHOULD DO COCKTAILS!

Something about Thai cuisine always put her to sleep. Her coworkers would discover her slumped over her keyboard, drooling, and wonder if she had been up all night again. But no, it was merely a physiological reaction to dreary office luncheons, and the impossibility of juggling chili peppers in vinegar, coconut curries, and various oily red and green preparations while listening to them yacking over exercise clubs and stock-options. And whether Cindibelle had lost any weight, or Jennifer was seeing that hot hunk in Marketing. Such pedestrian subjects, and such glibly jejune commentary!

She actually enjoyed spicy curries, but she preferred places where there were fewer people like her colleagues. They were nice, well okay, sort of, but their mundane lives and interests did not in any way strike chords.
Healthnuts, wine drinkers, shopaholics, and sportsfiends.
Not a single one of them read anything at all!
They hadn't done so since college.
Textbooks only then.

She herself really liked trashy fiction. There was nothing better, Jennifer felt, than expecting some sweet young thing to be seduced by a leering rapscallion in a boîte. Or reading about a butchly named private eye sipping cheap Bourbon while waiting for a psychopathic stevedore in an alley near the docks. Her preferences ran towards gritty detective fiction.
Unfortunately every woman she knew at work was more fascinated by reality shows and the shopping channel, and all the men talked incessantly about sports.

She supposed that she did stay up late too often. It was easy to do, once she got home. The retired podiatrist downstairs played his collection of opera records on his 1970's turntable till the wee hours, his pipe-smoke would drift up through the airwell and suggest an earlier era when the smells of asphalt, machine oil, and hot tar were more common and less objectionable. She had never complained to the landlord; she didn't really know her neighbor, but she liked his smoky macho fragrance.
It suggested things; mysterious, delicious, and nicely wicked.
One of these days she'd compliment him on his tobacco.
Perhaps gift him an ashtray, to show sincerity.
She hoped he would still be around.
When she had the courage.
To talk to him.
○



The weather cleared up by tea-time. The apartment had already gotten over two hours of fresh air by then, and I resolved to open the windows wide again when I got back. Just to be on the safe side.
After an egg-tart and a steamed chicken bun.
Plus a hot cup of HK milk-tea.
And a pipe.

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MY TWITCHING NOSE

Perfume, without the actual alchemy of a woman's skin, is too empty. Not all fragrances are thus, but the smells associated with females really require the impact of a wearer. Each person affects the scent in a different way, and by the combination their nasal presence is given form.

One of the most enjoyable shops in downtown is owned and operated by a courteous gentleman with a keen nose. But I have not been to see André for years now, as purchasing his products would be pointless without a face to associate with the distillate.


PARFUMERIE JACQUELINE
103 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94108.

Just up from Grant Avenue, less than a block from Union Square.


One day I watched a nearly-blind gentleman carefully select fragrances for over a dozen people of his ken. He and the owner discussed skin types, ages, and personalities, and the customer attentively sniffed the strips of paper freshly impregnated, then painted a picture in his mind's eye of how it would smell on the recipient.
You'll have to agree; colouring your friends with a distinctive odour when you cannot really see them is far more sensible than gifting them with silks. When they are present, your mind cannot but recall shared events and experiences far more acutely than if these were illustrated in every hue.


NARD AND VETIVER, STYRAX AND ITTAR

I've bought several perfumes there over the years. The person for whom they were intended no longer wears them. Her style has changed, and her boy friend doesn't appreciate subtle nose-echoes, the fool.

They would smell quite different on someone else. It's how body-chemistry affects the substance. Each person is unique, and only strong candy scents stay constant.


That faint faint shimmering in the subconscious of your nostril-mind creates impressions more complete than any amount of make-up can; a marvelous person will be more beautiful for the waft-impression that you did not even notice.

As I said, it's pointless to purchase perfume without a person to wear them, someone who would be the perfect recipient of that accent.


Nowadays I sharply note the smells of tobaccos, of coffee, of tea. Jasmine, eucalyptus, and lemons. The crisp snappy hue of certain vegetables, resinous herbal exudates along particular roadways, tar......
A sandalwood incense on Stockton Street, which suddenly reminds me of the Philippines, and a clean scent in a certain restaurant, coming from tables thoroughly wiped. I associate it with a waitress who is attentive and hard-working, whose hospitable attitude vastly improves the taste of dinner.
Glass cleaner, old newspaper, and a weird hint of fake honey dew melon. That last from a girl who passed by; it must have been her large bucket of bubble tea.
Can't recall her face in any way at all.
The drink was more memorable.


There's a faint spiciness to my own skin.
I just noticed it right now.
Rather pleasant.
Nice.


I must smell someone else, though.



AFTER THOUGHT

Since posting that, a spambot tried to seed this blog with the following somewhat relevant comment: "You are correct Greg about the lemon pH, but baking soda is a neutralizer against all acids, so the pH combo of lemon and baking soda will be much more of base, or neutral pH. The lemon oil will require to be washed off with bar soap, because only soap will wash the lemon oil off in the tooth. Tooth paste will not; info for all your lemon eaters as well. "

I am utterly enchanted by the idea that there are people whose teeth smell of lemons. Someday I will have to meet one of them.


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PLAYING WITH THE CATS

Over two years ago I became a single man again, which at the time was something I neither wanted nor expected.
I stress that we are still friends.
How could it be otherwise?
When somebody has been central in your life, it is only natural that they remain part of it.
But in all honesty, that says more about her than it does about me. She is in so many ways a nicer and gentler person than I am - she did not want the end to be hard or angry, and she's very much the kind of person I would like to know, and to continue to know.

But we don't do what other friends do.
It's been several months since we went to a restaurant together.
Many years since we were at the movies with each other.
We've never gone out drinking together at all.
That's just not something she wanted.


THE SENSES

That last part needs some elucidation. The truth is that she does not like the taste of alcohol, and even the affection many people have for wine baffles her. She does not drink, and has probably never even tasted a cocktail.
Liquor smells incredibly vile and harsh to her.
I still find that utterly charming.

She has also never appreciated tobacco.
I've sort of accepted that.
But it's odd.

I've always regarded the reek of good pipe tobacco as one of the more comforting fragrances possible. Trails of incense wafting through the room, the faint lingering presence of fine Turkish or matured Virginias adhering like a familiar and beloved signature to a tweed jacket and the spines of books - what could possibly be more evocative of the presence, OR the keenly remembered presence, of a beloved relative or companion?

Smells bring back memories more powerfully than almost anything else. The aromas of particular tobaccos recreate sharply differentiated mood rewinds, the merest familiar hint brings back full chapters of experience.

Even today I occasionally sniff at my father's pipes, which he gave me before he died, to recall the man.
During the fifties and early sixties my dad smoked a blend from John's pipe shop in Hollywood. He had started shopping there as a teenager back in the thirties, and when he returned from the war, he resumed doing so.
While I was in Northbeach and my father still lived in the Netherlands, I tried to figure out precisely what that blend was, as it was no longer the same as it had been.
I wanted my father to again experience the pleasures of his past.
Now there isn't even anything by that name.


TIME AND PLACE

In Naarden, in the first years after we moved to Holland, he would sometimes smoke an English flake, and whenever I sniff something similar now I can see crystalline sunlight slanting in and taste again the weak tea that I was allowed to drink at that age.
Teatime is always at four o'clock, don't you know that?

Once we shifted to Valkenswaard I spent innumerable hours reading in the upstairs living room, which spanned the breadth of the building, with my father at his desk engaged in translating technical articles into Dutch, my brother Tobias at his desk in the other corner studying for school, and my mother downstairs in her office typing away.
There were occasional whisps of Dobie's Foursquare (blue) from one of his pipes, if he lit up.
A contemplative odour, signature of that time.
And a cat asleep on the couch.

Years later it would not be till late at night that anyone else was there, as my parents spent the evening in their room together reading or talking, my mother's illness having limited her mobility considerably.
At that time I smoked my own pipes and tobacco in the stillness, with the various desk lamps on to provide sufficient light. My brother, when he was back from Tilburg where he went to school, would be downstairs in the dining room memorizing the chess moves of the masters, where I would occasionally join him for a game.
Again, a different spectrum of smoke.
Plus cats and pipe cleaners.

During summer break Tobias and I occupied the sera off the courtyard, with the French doors open - he pensively clicking chess-pieces and turning pages, I with a favourite book while enjoying a bowlful. Perhaps later Dad would join us, and take some of my tobacco, after much urging.
Sharp dark Syrian, pale Orientals, Virginia.
Especially wonderful when it rained.
Aromas of wet grass and trees.
Whisps of tarry smoke.
Impatient cat.

Amsterdam during stormy weather? Friesche Baai and Coopvaert, both little more than ribbon-cut Maryland, slightly sharp in the nose. A café terrace on the Prins Hendrik quay, looking out over the water toward the Central Station. Trams and bicyclists go past, shattering the glittering light reflected off wet pavement.

The character of each tobacco is a mnemonic.
Familiar smells become beloved.

Somewhere there is a room that requires an added fragrance.
Perfumes evoking a multi-layered response.
In time memories will arise.



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IT SMELLS FAMILIAR

A few months ago I paused a while under the awning at Hyde and Pacific.
It was raining, it was late at night. Light rain is utterly wasted during the day time because the smells are muted - when streets are empty, things smell fresher, greener.

I had seen two raccoons here years earlier, waiting for the light before they crossed the street.

How well behaved! Yet as soon as they reached the other side they proved that law-abiding only went so far - they tested every door and window along the street and under the trees, dividing their miscreance between them, alternating.
They made a smoothly co-operative couple, a pair of furry criminals happily and disgracefully growing old together.

I can imagine them holding paws for all eternity, feeling safe with each other, comforted by familiar touch and smell.

Odour invokes, smells awaken the imagination. The mind's nose jumps from fresh green leaves to remembered perfumes, fragrant objects, other people, the new new aroma of leather goods.....

Food, of course.

Rice stick noodles, the savouriness of soy, the sharp tang of chilies, the fresh green whiffs of cilantro and parsley, a floral zest-hint of lime.
Noodle soup: it's happy food.

[I've been eating rice-stick noodles a lot lately - when you're only cooking for one person, soup-noodles are much more convenient than rice-food. The brilliant green of fresh herbs against the snow-whiteness is striking even in the half-dark of evening.
It glistens, and it smells so fresh!]

Sometimes I sit at the table with the window open after dinner, listening to the faint murmurs from across the back yards.
I would enjoy company, but I like the near-silence too.
There are aromatic things growing out there.
High anise, wild oregano, yellow acacia.


雪梨香 SNOW PEAR FRAGRANCE

Soon it will be the time to put up the net around my bed, and start burning a stick of incense every night to chase away the mosquitoes. Not that there are many of them, but even one bug can keep you up. Mosquitoes do not like smoke, it interferes with their hunt.

Some fumes are more effective than others.
Snow pear (雪梨香 suut lei heung) is discrete, a powdery antique fragrance, and through years of familiarity in the background every summer, comforting, and quieting to the mood.
I don't know if it really chases them away.
But it works wonders on the mind.


Everything will turn out fine.
Never postpone living.



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ALWAYS SMELLS LIKE PIPE

"My dad used to smell like that", she said. There was a wistfulness to her voice.
She herself did not smoke, but she had noticed the faint shade of pipe-tobacco that always accompanies me.
Which was remarkable because the only smell that I was aware of in the coffee-shop was roasted beans.
She was behind me at the counter, and when she first spoke I did not realize it was directed at me. But who else could she be asking "do you smoke a pipe?"
I turned around, curious. Was there another pipe smoker in line?
No, just the young lady who stood behind me.

As I poured a little cream into my cup at the service stand I asked "you said he 'used to' - past tense?"
"Yeah, he stopped years ago. My mom was starting to cough too much, and the smoke bothers her."
Couldn't he have smoked outdoors?
"No, he tried that for a while, still ended up carrying the smell into the house"
After a few seconds she said "I always liked sniffing him when he came back in. Leathery!"

Smells are often tied to memories deeply buried, which start vibrating again with the appropriate stimulus. The remembrance of things we are fond of comes back when carried on the breeze.
Similarly I also remember my father having a certain fragrance-spectrum.
A pipe tobacco blend with a fair amount of Burley - probably one of those American-style mixtures that were more common in the forties and fifties, light on the condimental tobaccos - plus India ink, pencils, and something that might have been soap, or perhaps a peculiar lotion sold at the local drogistery.

My pipe tobacco does not smell like his, and the perimetral odours I carry with me are also different. But sometimes an element of a remembered whiff comes to the nose, and I must pause.

She mentioned that whenever she goes home she still likes her dad's smell, but it isn't the same. The recollections have been washed out of his clothes, now there's only soap and a certain skin-sweetness. The tarry quality of the past is gone.
When she went away to college she took one of his pipes with her, kept it for a while on her bedside table. Now she has it in a shoebox on a top-shelf. Whenever she feels sad she opens the box. In addition to the pipe, which is wrapped in a handkerchief, it also contains her first real watch and some old birthday cards that always make her smile. She holds the pipe for a while, sniffs at the rim. Somehow it always works.
When her mother was hospitalized last year she smelled the pipe a lot. Hasn't needed to do so for a while, mom has recovered. But she's keeping the pipe in reserve. Perhaps she'll put it on her bedside table again.

"Everyone should smell unique, don't you think?"

I'm somewhat surprised that I have a similar nostril-spark as someone else's father. Most of my life I've had a slight reek, but I always thought of it as entirely my own. Years ago some friends said that they always knew when I had been somewhere - the whispery faintness of Latakia would still linger long after I had gone.

I recognize the smells of some other people. If I'm fond of them it's very comforting.
Ideally, others will think so too about me. A hint of Latakia - resinous, tarry, tangy - and a mere suggestion of cigar.
Plus tea. Tea is a nice smell, it speaks of home.


After we had talked for a few more minutes, I excused myself and went to the seats outside to have a smoke.
She sat at one of the tables near the front of the coffee shop, diagonally behind me on the other side of the glass.

You know how you can sometimes tell when you are being observed?
You don't actually see the eyes, but you are aware of their presence.
It's the same when nostrils are aimed right at you.

Almost imperceptibly the window slid open an inch or two.
Had anyone asked, she almost certainly would have said it was for fresh air.
But her subconscious might think that it was to let the past float in.


EVERYTHING HERE SMELLS!

Whenever I visited friends I could recognize the interior of their dwellings by the fragrances. Cleaning fluids, soaps, particular foods, wood polish, and many other things forming a recognizable symphony.
Our house in Valkenswaard had its own familiar perfume. The faintest trace of the bars of lavender soap with which my mother seeded all the clothes drawers, an herbal greenness drifting in from the garden, and the cigarettes which my parents smoked. Hints of silver polish, and the dust of books.
Plus coffee, of course. Life without strong coffee would've made the Netherlands a very dull place indeed.

This morning my apartment stank. My roommate, Savage Kitten, had burnt a small sauce pan with milk-coffee. Even though I am the smoker, she is responsible for most of the smells. She might disagree with that assessment, though.

Her odours permeate the apartment, mine are mostly limited to the kitchen. When I smoke I close the kitchen door, when she cooks the door is often wide open. Some evenings when I come home the hallway bears fragrant witness to her happily soaking in a warm bath.
Her nose is not as acute as mine.
Late at night I sometimes smoke in the teevee room, she doesn't notice.
I do not know what prompts memories as strongly for her.


COFFEE & LEMON GRASS?

For some people the nose is the most sexual part of the body. I can imagine deeply sniffing the hair of a woman, and actually doing that would permanently imprint that person on my mood-mind. What someone smells like is a signature, even if their personal choice of perfumes evolves. If you like the person, you will love their shifting fragrance-spectrum.
Presently my proboscis is quite alone.

I smell faintly of soap. But there's a hint of pipe tobacco. Leather, spice, and incense.
Slightly sharp, slightly tarry.
Even in the darkness you could probably recognize me.

TOBACCO INDEX


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WHAT ODD PERFUME!

There were teenage girls on the bus who sounded like ducks. It is doubtful that any of them will ever go to college, they just didn't seem the type. But please do not think that I look down on the dumb - I actually like morons!
I just prefer them to be quieter. Or, if that's impossible, more intelligent.

One of them was wearing a new perfume.
Even from several seats away I noticed.
Her friend asked her what it was (which is how I know it was a new perfume). The wearee was proud of her find and gladly shared that knowledge.
It may have been called Tropical Thunderstorm, or Tropical Passion, or Tropical Fever, or Tropical Lust-dream, or something.
Tropical.
Supposedly it recalled the rainforests.


MANGROVE SWAMP TROLLOP ALLURE

Sweetheart, rainforests do NOT smell like the mango jelly whore house!
There is remarkably little in the tropical environment that smells of fruit, or even flowers.
Rainforests reek of tannic rottenness and very nasty things.
The tropics are rich, fecund, and decomposing.

Most of the exotic perfumes are misnamed. The wearers would be horrified if they could really smell the exotic locales and rare ingredients enfolded in the perfume's image.

Many tropical flowers, if they have any aroma at all, are feral and verging on putrid.
Several of the most beautiful blooms whiff of rotting meat.
If you really want an exotic fragrance that will not make men gasp, try something more mundane.

Decent soap, normal shampoo, clean clothes .....
A discrete touch of Alfred Sung or something by Muelhens .....

Several smells really awaken images for me, and recall warmer (and hence 'exotic') climes.

Fried shrimp paste and dried fish: Philippines.
Gummy incense and salty condiments: South-East Asian grocery stores.
Fermented black beans: A sea-food restaurant in 110 degree heat.
Decomposing fruit: All of South-East Asia.
Rotting fish: A palm-lined beach in Malaysia.

Burnt rubber: Java.
Open sewers: Java.
Animal corpses: Java.
Rancid coconut grease: Java.
Rotting garbage: Java.
Chemical effluvium in a ditch: Java.


Java is a VERY exotic place. Beautiful, too.
Yes, please smell like that!


On the other hand, dried citrus, the faintest hint of cassia and clove, merest whiffs of camphor and coffee - just about perfect.
The exoticism has been tamed, the foreign brought home.
Add the smells of clean laundry and cookies, and we're really talking sexy!

If you're wearing that, no need to speak - your presence is enough.
You are a sultry temptress just laying there fully clothed.
I have to brush my teeth now.
Or wash my hands.
Something.


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I SMELL YOU

Years ago I read an account by a smoker of Balkan Sobranie (no, this post is NOT about pipe tobacco!) who claimed that his children just loved coming up and burying their noses in his tweed coats, because they smelled so divinely old-fashioned.
It's a charming idea. And as a pipe-smoker myself, I just sheerly love the concept. I also have a tweed coat.

But there may be more there than meets the eye......

The office where I worked nearly a decade ago was right over a hot-lunch place run by Greeks. They roasted about three dozen chickens every day. Entering the building in the morning, your nose was welcomed with the thick sultry perfume of thyme and warm chicken fat, yes absolutely heavenly!
Why, I bet that when mr. Whatsisnameopoulos went home at night, his little kiddies would run up to bury their wee noses in his jacket, inhaling deeply of the comforting greasy aroma!
Voicing shrill graeco-squeals of pleasure and recognition!

And right about now, the crucial flaw in that Balkan Sobranie story comes into focus, doesn't it?

My coworkers just wouldn't stop bellyaching about the chicken reek.
Sure, none of them were the children of cooks, but evenso. Some smells are NOT universally appealing, much though I wish they were.


ME SMELLS


Personally, I like the smell of Balkan tobacco blends. I also enjoy the robust fragrance of multitudes of cooking chickens, as well as the whiff of hot tar, the stale-sweat perfume of freshly sharpened pencils, and the tang of certain metal alloys.
Burning mosquito coils, fountain pen and printing inks, old cardboard, extinguished candles.

Some smells just induce a deep sense of bon temps.


In that category, of course, one also finds some 'nose-memories' that are more "traditional". Your mother's eau de Cologne, the fresh washed smell of a classmate's long long hair, chalkboard erasers, an aunt who carried with her the hint of pak fa yau or jing gwat soei, a favourite teacher's lunch-time bourbon, or the faint faint whisper of lilacs in an old neighbor woman's hallway.

[Pak fa yau (白花油): white flower lotion; a mentholated oil available in small bottles in Chinatown, often used for minor ailments. It's a very old-fashioned smell. Jing gwat soei (正骨水): 'rectify bones water'; a sharp-smelling liquid rub for sore muscles and bone aches much appreciated by the kung-fu and soccer crowds, also fine for promoting circulation in tired old legs and ankles.]

Cassia. Camphor. Cedar wood.
Distant pasture.
Vermilion seal ink.
Scented stationery.
Wet grass.
Ginger.
Jasmine tea.
Slightly rotten leaves in Autumn.
Hot chocolate.
Rain.
Roasting coffee from the Caffe Trieste.
Fog on Jackson Street, between Jones and Leavenworth.
Bruised oranges and tangerines at fruit sellers before Chinese New Year.
Wild herbs on Telegraph hill.

You can probably come up with a similar list. And some of the things that olfactorily speak to you may be a little strange too.
We all have different noses.
You show me yours, I'll show you mine.

I'll even let you smell my tweed coat.


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REAL LUMBERJACK

A few years ago I mentioned that pipe smokers who have spent money on a tin of tobacco that they will never finish are a sour lot, given to vituperation and lyric fury. Consequently, the reviews they may render of a despicable product can be a joy to read.

Follows a sampling - some paraphrasis, and the actual name of the product omitted.


REVIEWS

"This is poo, and I'm tipping the rest of this ghastly mess in the dump. It smelled like the crapper caught fire.
If you like this you probably like smoking road kill."

"This one is not for sissies."

"I'm chucking the pipe in which I smoked this into the furnace."

"It tasted like unadulterated bear crap - not that I've ever smoked bear crap, but I will NOT spend my money on something that tastes like arse."

"It turned too harsh very quickly and made me sick."

"Heavy, sweet, and medicinal. It made me sick."

"Unique. It made me sick."

"This tobacco leaves a sticky brown residue on your hands. It takes great effort to light, then tastes like it smells - floral soap and chocolate.
I don't really like it that much."

"My wife did NOT like the way it smelled. But the dog didn't run away."

"I sing in the choir."

"It made me sick."

"Three stars, except for the burn and bite."

"The offensive topping smells like a sewer exploded - I've never tasted burning sewer, but you-all are real lumberjacks."
.........

Well now.
This sounds fascinating. Delightful, even.
I shan't tell you what product from which highly esteemed company this is, so as not to influence your buying decisions.
All I can say is I've got to get me a tin.

TOBACCO INDEX


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