A sniff of a cheese sandwich on the griddle pulls Chicago television commercial producer Lisa von Drehle back to a childhood conflict with her health-conscious mother. The memory of stew simmering in his mother’s kitchen, triggered by odors wafting from a stockpot, inspires chef Allen Sternweiler to create “my favorite dish ever.” Preparing a meat loaf, author Nancy Hutchens is struck by the vision of Aunt Esther, author of the meat loaf, defending her as a child.
For Tony Kramer, one of nine children, the smell of chicken cooked by his mother brings back moments of family harmony at the dinner table. Preparing a “contemporary incarnation” of an old-fashioned slaw recipe, restaurateur Barbara Shinn finds herself recalling the women of her family who shaped and altered the recipe over the years. Stirring bread dough, advertising executive Cate Erickson is momentarily again a 5-year-old comforted by the smell of baking bread.
These all are memories of food and all of them are triggered to some degree by smell.
“Many authorities believe that the sense of smell has a more powerful impact upon the emotions than any of the other senses,” says Dr. Alan R. Hirsch, a pioneer in research on memories triggered by smell. This is the button novelist Marcel Proust inadvertently pushed when he sniffed a spoonful of tea in which lay some cake crumbs and evoked his remembrance of things past.
Hirsch, neurological director of the Smell & Taste Research and Treatment Foundation in Chicago, talks of “flash-bulb memories,” so vivid are the re-creations.
Jacques Pepin, the French chef and television personality, adds: “It’s immediate, unexpected and very powerful. You come into a kitchen, sniff something and suddenly you are 5 years old again.” And Diane Ackerman, in her book “A Natural History of the Senses,” writes ” . . . smell needs no interpreter. The effect is immediate, and undiluted by language, thought or translation.”
This is because smell works somewhat differently than the other senses. As Hirsch explains it in a recently published book, “What Flavor is your Personality?,” odor molecules are drawn into the nostrils each time we inhale. Moving at lightning speed, they race through a number of gateways and along corridors located directly behind the bridge of the nose to reach the limbic lobe of the brain, also known as the emotional brain.
“No other sensory receptors or processors have their home in the limbic center of the brain,” Hirsch writes. “The sense of smell stands alone as a direct link to the emotional responses and emotional life.”
This means odor molecules can dash right into the space occupied by emotions such as love and hate and moods such as anxiety and pleasure. They trigger an involuntary, immediate response. The reaction comes first, even before we have identified the source of the odor. Thus a frown of displeasure may turn to a smile when we finally see a piece of cheese whose pungent odor has preceded it to the table. “It’s supposed to smell that way,” we say to ourselves.
This becomes even more significant, Hirsch explains, when we consider that “smell may account for more than 90 percent of the sense we call taste.”
As we chew, odor molecules from the food follow a route that begins at the back of the throat behind the soft palate to the olfactory nerves, reinforcing what the nose has learned. Add signals from the taste buds, located on the tongue and soft palate, and tactile sensations such as texture and temperature (sometimes called mouthfeel), and you have “flavor,” the scientists say.
Taste “in the strict sense,” David V. Smith and Robert F. Margolskee explain in the March issue of Scientific American, is limited to perception of saltiness, sourness, sweetness and bitterness and perhaps the glutamate-inspired sensation called umami. Smell and taste, known as the chemical senses, are far less developed in humans than in animals–perhaps, scientists theorize, because vision and hearing, which are processed through the rational side of the brain, the cortex, are more important in a society of humans. Furthermore, smell is emotional. It does not have to be rational.
Combine this loose-cannon element with the realization that another area to which odor molecules have direct access is the storehouse of memories. From here come the odor-inspired flash-bulb recollections Hirsch and others cite.
A study Hirsch conducted, asking nearly 1,000 people, “Do any particular odors remind you of your childhood?” brought an 85 percent positive response. “Food and cooking” were cited by 38.9 percent of the participants, with fresh baked goods the odor mentioned most often. Odors from nature, such as trees, rain and hay, rated 31.6 percent. No other odor–including smoke and soap–rated even 7 percent. (Curiously, pleasant odors are not as insistent as foul odors. We may lean forward, the better to inhale the odors from a flower, but will be repelled by a foul odor and seek to escape it.)
Nostalgia, meanwhile, is playing with our psyches, Hirsch says. It is not just a yearning for the past, but “a longing for an idealized state, a sanitized impression of the past . . . with all negative emotions filtered out.” It is a “bittersweet” emotion because it represents a return to a past that “never truly existed.” That explains why the food served at the re-creation of a long-ago dinner party can be curiously unsatisfying.
For some, a food odor may evoke no sweet, only bitter. For example, while a whiff of pumpkin pie spice mix or hot turkey stuffing triggers nostalgic recollections of Thanksgiving dinner in many of us, it may cause an opposite reaction in those with dysfunctional families.
Another rude shock: Only 61 percent of participants age 60 or older said they had experienced olfactory-evoked recall. Among those under 60, the rate was 87 percent. Of course the elderly, many of whom suffer memory loss as well as the loss of the ability to smell, may have smell-inspired visions of things past — and then forget them.
Those under 60 had a burden of their own to carry. Their attacks of nostalgia often were brought on by artificial odors such as Play-Doh and plastic, while the oldsters cited natural odors such as sea air and pine.
Therefore, as the young inherit the role of taste arbitrators, will food memories be linked increasingly to artificial flavors?
That seems unlikely when, in many restaurants if not homes, real mashed potatoes and pristine vegetables are providing fresh food memories for a new generation.
‘There were nine of us kids in my house, so we ate homemade bread and chicken a lot. The smells in the kitchen were very soothing. Years later we had a family gathering and my mother asked what she should cook. Everyone said “muddy chicken.” It’s so simple, maybe it isn’t a recipe. I know she didn’t measure anything. She’d brown chicken pieces, then steam them on a plate for a long time until the meat was falling off the bone. The debris made the juices “muddy.” We’d be served a small piece and lots of mashed potatoes. It was our favorite dinner.’
— Tony Kramer, hair stylist, Chicago
Kramer muddy chicken
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Chicago hair stylist Tony Kramer shares vivid memories with eight siblings of a childhood family favorite created by their mother. The chicken, after browning, steams on a heat-proof plate set into a Dutch oven.
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon each: salt, lemon pepper seasoning, garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 egg
2 tablespoons water
1 chicken, about 3 pounds, cut into 8 pieces, patted dry
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) chicken broth
1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Stir together flour, salt, lemon pepper, garlic powder and black pepper in pie plate or shallow bowl; set aside. Whisk together egg and water in another pie plate or shallow bowl; set aside. Dredge chicken in flour mixture; dip into egg mixture. Dredge in flour; shake off excess.
2. Heat oil in medium skillet over medium-high heat. Brown chicken in batches on all sides, about 4 minutes per batch. Place chicken on oven-proof plate that fits into bottom of medium Dutch oven. Add chicken broth, and water if necessary, to depth of edge of plate. Heat to boil. Cover; place in oven. Cook until chicken falls off bone, about 2 hours.
Nutrition information per serving:
540 calories, 60% calories from fat, 35 g fat, 8 g saturated fat, 160 mg cholesterol, 805 mg sodium, 7 g carbohydrate, 46 g protein, 0.3 g fiber
‘The tradition of making kuchen, a Christmas morning bread, was passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. I first stirred the kuchen dough standing on a chair when I was five or six. The smell when it was baking was so alluring and inviting. The aroma said to me, “Everything is all right.”‘
— Cate Erickson, account supervisor, Leo Burnett USA, Chicago
The Cook kuchen
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Rising time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Yield: One 2 1/4-pound loaf, about 12 servings
Chicago advertising executive Cate Erickson is caretaker of a Cook family tradition passed from generation to generation: a Christmas morning bread. Adapted from the family recipe.
1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup warm (110 degrees) water
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1. Mix together yeast, 1 tablespoon of the sugar and water in small bowl. Set aside until bubbly, about 15 minutes. Combine 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup of the milk, butter and salt in medium saucepan. Cook, stirring, over low heat, until butter is melted. Pour milk mixture into large bowl. Add 1 cup of the flour; mix well. Stir in yeast mixture, eggs and 1 1/2 cups of the flour to form sticky dough.
2. Transfer dough to lightly floured surface; knead in remaining 1 cup of flour until dough is smooth, elastic and slightly sticky, about 15 minutes. Place dough in large, greased bowl; cover with towel. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours. Place dough on lightly floured surface; knead in raisins. Shape into large round loaf. Place on greased baking sheet; cover with towel. Let rise 45 minutes.
3. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Brush loaf with remaining 1 tablespoon milk. Mix cinnamon with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in small dish; sprinkle loaf with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until browned, about 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Serve warm, cut into thick slices, or toasted.
Nutrition information per serving:
245 calories, 16% calories from fat, 4.4 g fat, 2.3 g saturated fat, 45 mg cholesterol, 120 mg sodium, 47 g carbohydrate, 6 g protein, 2 g fiber
‘This is an old-fashioned sweetened tomato dressing that’s been passed from mother to daughter in my family. A nice alternative to today’s vinaigrettes, it has changed slightly from generation to generation as tastes changed or ingredients became outdated. Although this is the contemporary incarnation with modern ingredients, we still call it “Grandma’s dressing.”‘
— Barbara Shinn, co-author of “Recipes from Home,” a new cookbook from the New York City restaurant Home.
Grandmother McCall’s salad dressing
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Setting time: 30 minutes
Yield: 1 1/2 cups
A well-loved family hand-me-down that has changed somewhat from generation to generation, this Barbara Shinn recipe is adapted from her book “Recipes from Home.”
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons each: Worcestershire sauce, sugar, minced onion
1/2 teaspoon each: Dijon mustard, kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon each: freshly ground pepper, sweet paprika
1/2 cup diced fresh tomatoes
1 small fresh bay leaf
1. Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire, sugar, onion, mustard, salt, pepper and paprika in a medium bowl. Add tomatoes and bay leaf; stir until combined. Let sit 30 minutes to let flavors blend.
2. Remove bay leaf before using. (The dressing can be stored up to 1 month in refrigerator.)
Nutrition information per tablespoon:
40 calories, 93% calories from fat, 4.5 g fat, 0.6 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 45 mg sodium, 0.7 g carbohydrate, 0 g protein, 0 g fiber
‘Mother’s baby sister, Esther, was the aunt I could always count on to defend me when my brothers or cousins were getting the upper hand.
This meat loaf was her specialty and she taught me to make it when I was first learning to cook.’
— Nancy Hutchens, author of “Memories of a Midwestern Farm”
Aunt Esther’s meat loaf
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Yield: 6 servings
As a novice cook on an Indiana farm, author Nancy Hutchens learned the recipe for this fragrant meat loaf from her aunt. Adapted from her book, “Memories of a Midwestern Farm.”
Sauce:
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup each: water, apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons yellow mustard
Meat loaf:
1 1/2 pounds ground round or chuck
1/2 pound bulk pork sausage
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cracker crumbs
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup milk
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1. For sauce, combine sugar, water, vinegar and mustard in small saucepan. Heat to boil. Remove from heat; set aside.
2. Heat oven to 400 degrees. For meat loaf, mix together all ingredients with hands in medium bowl. Transfer to medium oven-proof skillet. Shape into 9-by-5-inch loaf. Pour sauce over meat loaf. Bake, uncovered, until lightly browned and firm, and an instant-read thermometer inserted into center reads 160 degrees, about 55 minutes. Let stand about 15 minutes before slicing.
Nutrition information per serving:
550 calories, 43% calories from fat, 26 g fat, 10 g saturated fat, 160 mg cholesterol, 1,335 mg sodium, 52 g carbohydrate, 27 g protein, 0.8 g fiber
