The Meaning of Things Left Inside the Pages of a Book

Still Life with Guitar by Juan Grís (1920)

Once in a while, I find an unconventional placeholder related to memorable text or art in the pages of a book I’ve read. Something that seems new to me at first. Then I remember why I left it there. Beauty in the bricolage of life exists even if life is showing its fangs on the day you find it. Two recently encountered items stand out.

Item 1: Olfactory-rich text in the “Doldrums” chapter of Tristes Tropiques by renowned anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (left) and a light blue-green “Swimming SW6764” paint swatch used as a bookmark (right). The passage is beautiful, fragrant and highly sensorial. I long for a bottle of its perfume after reading it, a sentiment I had when I first came across the passage 12 years ago.

The traveler approaching the New World is first conscious of it as a scent very different from the one suggested back in Paris by the connotations of the word Brazil, and difficult to describe to anyone who has not experienced it. 

At first, it seemed that the sea smells of the preceding weeks had ceased to circulate so freely; they had come up against an invisible wall: thus immobilized, they no longer claimed the traveler’s attention, which was now drawn towards smells that were of a quite different nature and that nothing in his past experience enabled him to define: they were like a forest breeze alternating with hot-house scents, the quintessence of the vegetable kingdom, and held a particular freshness so concentrated as to be transmuted into a kind of olfactory intoxication, the last note of a powerful chord sounded separately as if to isolate and fuse the successive intervals of diversely fruity fragrances. This can only be appreciated by someone who has buried their face in a freshly cut tropical red pepper, after having previously, in some botequin of the Brazilian sertão, inhaled the aroma of the black honeyed coils of the fumo de rolo, made from tobacco leaves, fermented and rolled into several lengths several yards long. In the blend of these closely allied scents, he can recognize an America, which, for thousands of years, was alone in its possession of their secrets. 

But when, at four o’clock in the morning of the following day, the New World at last appeared on the horizon, its visible image seemed worthy of its perfume.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropiques. Trans. John and Doreen Weightman. New York: Penguin Classics, 2012, page 78.

Leví-Strauss’ words enter and exit the reader’s mind with the dreamy languor of incense smoke. Transforming the passage into a perfume (an ephemeral creation that triggers and inspires memories) makes perfect sense. The book, originally written in French, was published in 1955. Translations exist, but the same can’t be said for the creation of a perfume based on the excerpt—70 years later.

The second item I found is a pattern made by randomness. A train ticket covering a page of haiku is engaged in a visual dialogue with painting on the opposite page. I didn’t make a connection at the time, as the ticket served as an ad hoc bookmark when the train was pulling into the Larchmont Metro-North train station in Westchester County.

Item 2: A Japanese brush painting titled “Shoots of the Horsetail Plant” by Saitô Shôshû (left) is situated opposite a New Haven line Metro-North Railroad ticket, circa early 2000 (right). The painting, which is next to four unseen haiku beneath the train ticket, uses the same shades of red and black ink found on the commutation ticket. The item on the left is art; the item on the right is art by association. 

I’ve taken the New Haven line infrequently and am better acquainted with the trees, shrubs, plants and long grass that grow alongside the riverside tracks of the Hudson line across from the Palisades. Though I recall specific seasonal views, memories of 14 years of commuting to and from Hastings-on-Hudson and Grand Central Terminal on the Metro-North have merged. 

My mind connects commuting experiences by type versus single experience, unless there's an experience worth recalling that breaks through the monotony of routine commuting. The fact that eidetic memory isn’t common makes sense as it would be a recipe for hell if we remembered everything. One part Sherlock Holmes knack, the other a not-so-friendly invitation into a well-fitting straitjacket with less time to live in the present.

It's interesting how the way we think and remember is reflected in the material things we hold onto. Each item saved serves as a potential catalyst for reminiscence that allows us to organize personal meaning with agency as a witness to our own life. 

This is particularly important when the people who raised us, the archivists of our lives, are no longer here to answer questions about our past that inform our present life. In this respect, meaningful things we save don't leave us empty-handed until we decide that they don't change the fact that unanswered questions are a part of life. 

"A New Day Every Day" (2014) by Sarah Nicole Phillips. The branching pattern of trees (dendritic) is found in nature and appears in the veins of leaves, the pattern of roots, and human arteries, veins and capillaries. The collage is designed using  security envelope papers. 

I've begun collecting security envelopes that accompany bills, the kind with designs on the underside that obscure the contents inside the envelope from being seen on the outside. Common designs include confetti, linen, burlap and crosshatched patterns printed in blue or black ink. Once in a while, a security envelope with an ornamental pattern arrives and breaks the monotony. 

I consider repetitive patterns in nature and stumble across an unexpected find. A recording of Salvador Dalí talking about logarithmic patterns in relationship to the unique spiral pattern of a rhinoceros horn (an obsession of his). 

Then it becomes clear to me. It's not the safety aspect of security envelopes that I'm attached to, it's the meaning of patterns and the way they connect and disconnect in earthly and spiritual ways. It's why I can't help wondering whether Dalí, an artist fond of using found objects in his sculptures and assemblages, left traces of his personal life behind in the pages of the books he owned. 

Notes & Curiosities

It's not uncommon for secondhand booksellers to find personal items inside copies of used books sold by their previous owners. There isn't an all-encompassing word for the items found inside a previous owner's books as contents vary, though most are relics of life experience. Glass Petal Smoke leans towards "personalia" as it complements marginalia. Curious about what people leave inside their books? Begin by searching for "things booksellers find inside used or antiquarian books". 

Note to haiku lovers. The second "find" in this story was located in A Net of Fireflies: Japanese Haiku & Haiku Paintings, translated by Harold Stewart. 

Smell & Tell Event | Inside the Olfactory Mind of Steffen Arctander

Mark your calendars! Steffen Arctander is
the focus of an upcoming Smell & Tell 
at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Inside the Olfactory Mind of Steffen Arctander 

Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2023 

Time: 5:30PM -7:30PM 

Location: Ann Arbor District Library (Downtown) 

Address: 343 S 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 

Phone: 734-327-4200

Steffen Arctander was a renowned chemist, perfumer and flavorist. He is best known for authoring Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin (1960). The encyclopedic book contains more than 500 monographs on natural materials inclusive of aromatic descriptions and classifications to help the user evaluate sensory impressions. 

Arctander’s legacy reaches beyond the pages of his book. He participated in the Danish Resistance when he was a student and worked for British Intelligence during WWII, narrowly escaping capture by the Gestapo. Steffen Arctander appeared on To Tell The Truth in 1964, a gutsy and taboo move for someone in a famously secretive industry.  

The fragrance flight for this program includes novel natural materials. We’ll use Arctander’s descriptors for guidance after blind smelling each one to get a better understanding of ourselves, and Arctander’s enduring legacy as the author of a magnificent “dictionary of smells”. 

The Smell and Tell series of art+science programming is led by Michelle Krell Kydd, a trained nose in flavors and fragrance who shares her passion for gastronomy, sensory evaluation and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. 

Notes:

Locating the footage from To Tell The Truth featuring Steffen Arctander was complicated by the fact that his name is misspelled in the YouTube video as "Contestant #3: Stefan Octander (Perfume expert)". Google search started directing traffic to Arctander's television appearance after I posted a story about it on February 17, 2021.  The transcription on YouTube was worth correcting for posterity. I provided a proper transcription in the article. 

The image that accompanies this post is Spring Garden by Omoda Seiju (1917).

Brian Eno, Maurice Roucel and the Perfume of Unfinished Business

Brian Eno and perfumer Maurice Roucel collaborated on a fragrance project in the late eighties that never came to fruition. Sounds like the perfume of unfinished business, but decades later, no one is talking about it. That's a shame because an existing fragrance opportunity that intersects with music and technology is right under their nose—and the fragrance industry's.

An interesting fact surfaced in the Spring 2015 edition of Noble Rot magazine. Brian Eno (musician, composer, producer and all around polymath) revealed that he collaborated with Quest perfumer Maurice Roucel on a "sex" perfume back in the day. That was just for fun.

Eno refers to Roucel as a friend, but what doesn't surface are details regarding how the two became acquainted (Roucel currently works for Symrise). Putting the pieces together makes the case for artistic collaboration in the present using technology that didn't exist when the two originally worked together—an app that incorporates music, color and fragrant inspiration.

Brian Eno

Brian Eno was immersed in learning about perfumery at Quest during Roucel's tenure there (Quest was acquired by Givaudan in 2007). The perfumer and the fragrance company aren't mentioned in Neroli's liner notes, but what took place in this time frame is.

The deduction is not squelchy. Neroli (1993) is an ambient album inspired by the essence of orange blossom and Eno's passion for collecting ingredients used in perfumery (a picture of his fragrance kit packed with vials accompanies liner notes in the 2014 reissue of the CD).

The CD liner notes contain an excerpt from a radio interview Eno did with WNYC's John Schaefer, the host of New Sounds. They reveal that Eno was working on a commercial perfume project with a large fragrance company, and that he made monthly trips to the company's office in Paris to gather experience and knowledge. The timeframe is the late eighties.

It would make sense for Eno to withhold the name of the company he was working with in a taped radio interview. The fragrance industry is notoriously secretive. A non-disclosure agreement may have been signed, but if it was have the terms of the NDA expired? Does it matter where the project picks up if Roucel is now at Symrise? Is Eno interested in revisiting something he abandoned in a new timeframe with new tools? These questions and more are worthy of consideration.

Maurice Roucel via Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle

Roucel was working for Quest in 1989 and though he isn't mentioned in Neroli's liner notes, his participation can be deduced if one reads “An Evening with Brian Eno” in The Complete Music Magazine (1982), “Scents and Sensibility” in Details magazine (July 1992) and “Ode to Perfume” in Noble Rot (2015).

Eno's fragrance industry references are always Quest and Roucel, but the liner notes for Neroli, which are dated September 18, 1989, require further exploration. Content from the New Sounds interview doesn't match Neroli's liner notes verbatim and a deeper "industry" reveal is in the liner notes. So why the blip?

Shadow of Neroli by Michelle Krell Kydd

Eno's interview with New Sounds was broadcast on October 18, 1989 under the title #375: Ambient Music with Brian Eno. The content of Neroli's liner notes isn't the "edited" broadcast that aired on New Sounds. It would be interesting to hear the uncut version, but the past is gone and it's 2018—time for Eno and Roucel to combine their métiers and visit uncharted territory.

The Bloom app created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers is a natural starting point. Bloom's haptic interface plays a sound every time a finger taps the touchscreen. Each tap generates a colored sphere and corresponding sound. Successive tapping creates multiple sounds and colors that are playfully synesthetic. The background color is set by the user as a "mood". Each mood on the Bloom app is named after an ingredient used in perfumery—there are 12 of them.

Screenshot of Bloom App on an iPad

Bloom's 12 fragrant "mood" settings are: Neroli, Vetiver, Ylang, Labdanum, Bergamot, Orris, Ambrette, Benzoin, Tolu, Cedar, Civet and Skatole. There are no smells in reality or virtual reality, though one could easily hack that with a collection of diluted aroma materials from suppliers like Eden Botanicals, Enfleurage NYC, Perfumer's Apprentice and White Lotus Aromatics.

Two product lines are immediately possible. The first is a collection of finished fragrances based on Bloom's mood settings. That's 12 perfumes Maurice Roucel can make and everyone knows he brings sexy back like it never left the room.

The second opportunity is a coffret containing each of the "mood" materials in dilution. This would encourage the development of a personal lexicon for smells, and indulging in scent layering to create perfume accords on skin.

The coffret addresses Eno's observation of fragrance as an "unlangued" sense. It's an opportunity to move through subjectivity into objectivity via learning to evaluate raw materials used in perfumery. Et voila. Glass Petal Smoke has just provided a fragrance brief for Brian Eno and Maurice Roucel.

One is reminded of writer Italo Calvino's words when considering the possibility that Eno and Roucel—two highly respected artists that are well versed in distinct disciplines—will never collaborate again:

…the phials, the ampoules, the jars with their spire-like or cut glass stoppers will weave in vain from shelf to shelf their network of harmonies, assonances, dissonances, counterpoints, modulations, cadenzas: our deaf nostrils will no longer catch the notes of their scale.
        —“The Name, The Nose” from Under the Jaguar Sun, by Italo Calvino

Let's hope perfumer Maurice Roucel (a 2012 Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres recipient) and polymath Brian Eno pick up where they left off, and don't leave us with dead air.

Notes:
Thanks to WNYC Associate Producer Caryn Havlik for assisting Glass Petal Smoke in locating #375: Ambient Music with Brian Eno on the New Sounds website when the date cited in Neroli's liner notes didn't correspond with the date of the broadcast.

The liner notes referenced in this article are from the 2014 reissue of Neroli on CD at All Saints Records. It is currently sold out.

A perfume accord is the basic character of a fragrance consisting of three or four blended notes that create a new aromatic impression. It's like using a mirepoix in cooking; the sum in flavor is different than the individual ingredients that comprise it.

A generative audio-visual installation utilizing Bloom made news last February, but smells weren't included in the communal mixed reality experience shaped by Bloom and Microsoft HoloLens.

"Brian Eno Smells" took place on February 21, 2018 at the Ann Arbor District Library, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I introduced the Bloom app at the Smell & Tell and 40 people smelled Musk Ambrette while the Bloom app operated in Ambrette mode. The purpose was to encourage personal olfactory lexicon via intersensing, a form of multisensory learning. You can read about the Smell & Tell event here. Special thanks to Christopher Porter who covered the event as a journalist and participant. Porter rocked a stylish coif a là David Bowie on the cover of Low, one of three albums in the Bowie "Berlin Trilogy" that Brian Eno worked on.

The Creative Process of Firmenich Perfumer Nathalie Lorson

The particulars related to creative process in perfumery continue to infuse media produced by flavor and fragrance houses. These vignettes are purposefully choreographed to instill a sense of authenticity in the viewer, and respect for the art of perfumery. An edgy Gallic soulfulness infuses Firmenich's video portrait of perfumer Nathalie Lorson. The video was posted on Vimeo last week* and appears to be the first of future video portraits from the private Swiss firm.

The story begins with Lorson lighting a strip of Papier de Armenie. A thoughtful monologue ensues:

Everything is rounded, gentle. Everything is done with delicacy. There's no vulgarity–ever. Because it must be things I like, all things considered, whatever the brand you are working for, you put something of yourself into it. 

When I have an idea, I don't let it go. I work, work, work until I succeed. I never give up. My inspiration comes from life, traveling, a color, a shape, a smell...it's all linked. I do the job of someone searching for gold nuggets, a gold digger! I think I'm...persistent, passionate, but on the other hand I can be quite tough. I can be very harsh. 

It's not easy for me to place my trust in someone, but when I do, I'm very loyal. In fact, I'm not hard. I'm actually quite sensitive, but I don't show it necessarily. It's a form of protection...a shell. It's so reductive to call someone a "nose." I'm not a "nose," I'm a brain. 

It's hard not to be struck by Lorson's displeasure at being called "a nose." A perfumer's creation speaks to the sense of smell, but the perfumer integrates several sensory modalities to actualize their creation. (This type of sensory interplay is well articulated by sommelier Jaime Smith who happens to be a synesthete.)

Would one call a visual expert "an eye?" Too Cyclopean. It's a matter of language and "a nose", even when referred to as le nez in French, doesn't do a good job of defining what it means to be a perfumer. Such are the limits of language and culture. Good thing there's video...

Notes:
Brands were getting comfortable with the idea of sharing the spotlight with fragrance creators when "Exposing the Perfumer" was published (Perfumer and Flavorist, May 2007). This has allowed flavor and fragrance companies, who formulate perfumes for international brands, the opportunity to highlight the métier of perfumers. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming years.

Edith Frank and the Chemistry of Esters

Edith Frank was my high school chemistry teacher at The Bronx High School of Science. A taskmaster in the classroom with a fierce passion for science, Mrs. Frank enjoyed the choreography of molecules in reaction and would quickly point out words used in chemistry that described things in ordinary life such as the concept of a catalyst. Though I enjoyed the art of chemistry, I was resistant to its mathematical aspects. I would have preferred to study the life of Dmitri Mendeleev and the stories behind each element in his Periodic Table of Elements.

Mrs. Frank was patient, worldly and clever. Some students were prone to making jokes about her appearance as she wore an impeccably coiffed wig, had perfectly penciled eyebrows, and wore a distinctive red lipstick that screamed Chanel. Edith Frank reminded me of Betty Glassman, a widow who lived in my apartment building on 191st Street in the Bronx who wore Chanel No. 5 every day and had a singing chihuahua. Betty and Edith didn't look alike, but each had the sophisticated carriage of a grande dame that never heads for the exit door in memory.

What I remember most about Edith Frank was that she turned me on to chemistry when everything in my being resisted it. This transformation came when our class focused on the synthesis of fragrant esters in a lab session. Our task was to combine acetic acid and iso-Amyl Alcohol to make iso-Amyl Acetate; a banana ester used to create banana flavor in the food industry. Like Sharon Longert, my fifth grade teacher at P.S. 33 in the Bronx, Edith Frank nurtured my olfactory mind. Chemistry became magical when I could relate it to my sense of smell and taste.

If you google Edith Frank you'll find the mother of the acclaimed Holocaust diarist Anne Frank. Anne’s mother dominates the search algorithm because she’s searched more frequently than a retired chemistry teacher from The Bronx High School of Science. The utility of the Internet as a search vehicle, outside of access to birth/death records and obituaries, is trumped by serendipity when you search for information attached to a person. I had the good fortune of locating an essay, which features Edith Frank, in the Meadowood Anthology 1905-2011: Memories in Miniature.
 

Luise David was Edith Frank's neighbor and the two Upper West Side apartment dwellers became travel companions. David's essay, "How I Discovered Mt. Fuji One Morning", proves that Edith Frank's "worldliness" was not a byproduct of my imagination; at sixteen my writer's mind was able grasp the elements of her character more quickly than those which graced the molecules in Mendeleev's table.

I never heard about a "Mr. Frank" or any Frank children when I attended The Bronx High School of Science. David's essay does not venture into Mrs. Frank's private life and so these curiosities remain a mystery. I am grateful to have had Edith Frank as a chemistry teacher and hope that serendipity leads to more information about who she was outside the classroom.

Notes:
Luise David's essay, "How I Discovered Mt. Fuji One Morning", can be found on pages 43 and 44 of Meadowood Anthology 1905-2011: Memories in Miniature.

Esterification is a chemical process that takes place when wine undergoes aging. Some of wine's esters (up to 160 at last count) can be found on the "fruity" portion of the wine aroma wheel designed by Ann C. Noble. 

Chew on This: Mastic Gum and Evergreen Flavor Notes

Imagine you are at a restaurant waiting for the bill. You are presented with a miniature plate of resinous crystals by your waiter who enthusiastically proclaims that they are, "derived from the sap of the Chios mastic tree and infused with characteristic evergreen flavor notes." He tells you it is chewing gum and hands you the bill. You start to reflect on last year's Christmas tree and don't recall eating it. Foodlore tempers reason with meaningful details that charm taste buds out of assuming the worst (i.e. this could be unpleasant, make me sick or perhaps kill me). Understanding a little chewing gum history will put the evergreen spectrum of flavor and mastic into perspective (eliminating the need for a death scene in this imaginary scenario).

In the U.S. the most popular flavor chewing gum is mint because it freshens the breath and cools the mouth with a stimulating sensation (the latter is due to the response of the trigeminal nerve to the presence of menthol molecules). Mint's flavor is a shadow of the evergreen spectrum of taste found in mastic; the original chewing gum that is also the root of the word "masticate" which means "to chew." Mastic is not as cooling as mint; it is camphoraceous, verdant, slightly woody and possesses a faint trace of floralcy. The organoleptic quality of woodiness is comparable to cedar.












Historically speaking, tree resin was the first chewing gum in several cultures. American Indians chewed resin from Picea mariana (black spruce) trees. The gum was cultivated in the same manner that frankincense has been for centuries; by cutting the bark of the tree and allowing the sap to flow and form hardened tears. Native groups in Mexico chewed chicle, a type of latex which is derived from the tropical evergreen tree Manilkara zapota. Chicle was used by Charles Adams when he created the first American chewing gum in 1869 and started a gum chewing rage in the States, much to the consternation of schoolmarms and the etiquette-obsessed.

The earliest record of tree resin being chewed as gum goes back to A.D. 50. At that time ancient Greeks chewed a resin from the evergreen Pistacia lentiscus commonly known today as mastic. Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands situated in the Aegean Sea and it is where the finest mastic in the world grows. Natives of the Mediterranean island are familiar with a religious tale attached to their precious mastiha. Saint Isidore was tormented and beheaded because he confessed to being a Christian and refused to revert to the pagan beliefs of Rome. According to legend, when the dead body of Saint Isidore was thrown among the mastic shrubs of Chios they shed tears of sorrow. These resinous tears were transformed into the healing tears of mastic.

The ancient Greek physician Dioscorides may not have had a chemistry lab, but he possessed knowledge of the bacteriostatic properties of evergreen tree resins before the advent of modern science, as did other tree resin chewing native cultures and their designated healers. Folk medicine became fact in 1998 when research at the University of Nottingham proved that mastic gum kills Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria which cause peptic ulcers. In 2006 scientists at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute identified the active ingredient as isomasticadienolic acid (a triterpenic acid which is also found in certain species of Frankincense trees).

Modern chewing gums are carbohydrate syrup-plasticizer compositions inspired by tree sap ancestors. If you want a true mastic experience you can purchase Chios mastic online or at Middle Eastern groceries (it is sometimes stocked behind the counter). Putting a tear of mastic resin on your tongue may seem odd at first, but it easily softens with the heat of the mouth and is quite chewable. The texture is slightly waxy and the flavor is woody and evergreen, possessing a gentle pine-like resinous quality. Sharawi Brothers, a 46-year-old Jordanian gum manufacturer, makes their mastic gum using mastic flavor and a modern gum base. Sharawi Brothers Mastic Gum is less camphoraceous tasting than pure mastic and has notes of lime and under-ripe orange blossom. The sweetness in the gum fades quickly, but the mastic flavor lingers.

The application of evergreen flavors is not limited to chewing gum. In Turkey, Greece and the Middle East mastic is added to ice cream as it lends a supple texture and enhances flavor. Shatila in Dearborn Michigan sells Kashta ice cream which is made with mastic and flavored with rosewater. Mastic's presence is detected in the supple pull of the ice cream, its evergreen flavor notes sublimated by cream and delicate rose. A halwa version of Shatila's Kashta ice cream is sold in-store and is not available by mail-order. If you visit Shatila be sure to taste it; the addition of fresh walnuts and pistachios is exquisite.

Trygve Harris of New York City's Enfleurage makes a wonderful frankincense ice cream that riffs on the pine spectrum of evergreen flavor notes. It is decadent, refreshing and possesses a lingering sensual mouthfeel due to the application of food grade gum arabic which is dosed to texturize the ice cream a little more intensely than mastic. The experience of eating Ms. Harris' frankincense ice cream is akin to being kissed because of the way you have to negotiate the frozen confection when it is melting on your tongue. You have to eat the ice cream to understand this as words fall short of translating the actual experience. You also need a little luck when it comes to finding Frankincense ice cream at Enfleurage; it is only served at special events in the store. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams in Columbus, Ohio sold frankincense ice cream last year, but you'll have to wait until Christmas 2012 to see if they will offer their frankincense flavor again.

Now that you know the story of mastic perhaps you'll be inclined to add "evergreen" as a descriptor to your culinary lexicon via personal experience. Evergreen flavor notes began bubbling up in the foodie world a few years ago. Heston Blumenthal rocked the Christmas table in 2009 using frankincense in a holiday entree. René Redzepi, chef at the Scandinavian restaurant Noma, made evergreen notes chic in several dishes and Fir a flavor to be reckoned with (a fact not lost on Clear Creek Distilleries in Oregon which makes Douglas Fir Brandy). Drinks flavored with evergreen notes of frankincense are already finding their way into a variety of mixologists' cocktails and frankincense bitters are commercially available in the U.K.

Mastic is a refreshing member of the evergreen flavor trend and is less terpenic (pine-like) than frankincense. Skinos Mastiha. a Chios mastic-based spirit, adds a gentle but complex evergreen twist to cocktails, with a faint woody floralcy that hints at violet. Mastic's ability to affect texture in foods by acting as a gumming agent is something chefs enjoy experimenting with so you can expect to hear more about innovative culinary applications of mastic in the future.

Notes & Acknowledgements:

"Luqum al-Qadi and the Porter" is a culinary tale in The Thousand and One Nights. In this story Scheherazade spins a tale about a humble gentleman who chooses dessert over a beautiful woman. If you can relate to this story pick up a copy of The Sweets of Araby: Enchanting Recipes from the Tales of 1001 Nights by Leila Salloum Elias and Muna Salloum. You can make some terrific sweets to accompany Kashta ice cream from Shatila.

If you are a gifted in the pastry making department you might want to prepare Culinary Flavors' Mastic Scented Galaktoboureko with Kataifi Phylo. If frozen delights are more to your liking Ice Cream Nation has a great recipe for Mastic Ice Cream. The pinnacle recipe for mastic ice cream is Nordljus'  Rosewater, Cardamom and Mastic Ice Cream.

Mastihashop is the official brand and store of the Chios Mastiha Growers Association. They sell raw mastic tears, mastic water, mastic essential oil (food grade), mastic flavor extract and other mastic-related products. Glass Petal Smoke recommends Chios mastic as inferior or adulterated mastic (made from almond trees and flavored with mastic oil) are sometimes found in the marketplace.

Thanks go out to Elena Vosnaki of Perfume Shrine. It was Elena who first introduced me to true mastic gum from Chios a few years back. The flavor has haunted me ever since.

The Chios Mastiha Growers Association website is rich with information on mastic. The recipe and research sections are worth a visit.

Photo of Chios mastic tree resin from a story by Diana Farr Louis on Kerasma: Greek Mediterranean Gastronomy. [The website is no longer live.]

Sharawi Chewing Gum Factory is based in Amman Jordan. It is common to find two spellings (Shaarawi) of the name as is indicative in the photo of the gum included in this post. They are one and the same. The gum can be purchased at Amazon though more competitive pricing is available in Middle Eastern groceries. Photo of gum by Michelle Krell Kydd.

Shatila will ship Kashta ice cream anywhere in the U.S. There is a four quart minimum order and other flavors to choose from. Their Kashta ice cream is priced at $7.00 per quart. Once you taste it you'll be glad there are three more quarts waiting for you in the freezer.

Photograph of pastry and Kashta ice cream at Shatila by Matryoshka. Her Tumbler page is enchanting; one can literally spend hours there. Rights revert back to Matryoshka. [The Tumbler page is no longer active.]

Master of Malt Frankincense Bitters are sold in the U.K. They can be purchased online.

Skinos Mastiha can be found at upscale liquor stores. Look for it in the section where you would typically find Ouzo and Arak. Some mastic spirits are made with anise seed and taste like Ouzo. Skinos Mastiha is not in this category which makes it all the more interesting to imbibe.

The allure of the exotic plays on the notion of pleasure and undiscovered territory.  Leon Samoilovich Bakst was well acquainted with this idea and it is evident in the costumes he designed for Serge Diaghilev in the Ballets Russes' production of Scheherazade (set to the music of Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov.). The image of the Odalisque accompanying this post evokes this notion brilliantly. It is the openness of the Odalisque and her sensual glance that invites imagination and appetite. 

UNESCO recognized Chios Mastiha as part of World Culture Heritage in 2014; two years after this article was published on Glass Petal Smoke.

Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle: Dans Tes Bras

Most perfumes that are touted as smelling like “skin” are often poorly constructed fragrances that have more in common with The Emperor’s New Clothes than the art of perfumery. Not so with Dans Tes Bras, the latest fragrance from Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle. Add perfumer Maurice Roucel to the mix and something rare in the landscape of fine fragrance creation emerges; a beautifully constructed perfume that sculpts the air and turns the wearer into a work of art.

Dans Tes Bras is different from Musc Ravageur (2000), Roucel’s first creation for Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle. Musc Ravageur is the scent of intent, the magnetic stare that compels when sexual appetite smolders and the object of desire is within reach. Dans Tes Bras (French for “in your arms”) is the glance of the beloved when you aren’t looking, the sensation of connection when eyes meet and you know that you’re exactly where you belong. Where Musc Ravageur pounces Dans Tes Bras lingers. Though attributes of spice, wood, musk and incense are clearly present, the fragrance is softened by floralcy that is gently ambrosial and sensually fresh. The ingredients (Bergamot, Clove, Violet, Jasmine, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Incense, Cashmeran®, Heliotrope and White Musk) are only part of the story. In the brochure for the fragrance Malle writes, “We hoped to capture the deep and lasting odor of warm skin, with all its salty hints and rich, intimate overtones.”

The application of Cashmeran® in Dans Tes Bras involves calibrated overdosing (something perfumer Pierre Bourdon did with dihydromyrcenol when he created Davidoff Cool Water in 1988.) Cashmeran® is a molecule with a musky, woody and spicy odor profile that was discovered by IFF scientists 40 years ago. When smelled on its own it’s hard to believe that a single molecule can have so much character and it’s this very quality that has rendered its timeless appeal to both functional and fine fragrance perfumers. Thierry Mugler’s Alien boldly lists Cashmeran® as an ingredient, but most perfume companies that include the molecule in formulas use fantasy names such as Kashmir Wood or Bois de Cashemire to describe it. This approach elicits an emotional response from the consumer, as opposed to educating them on the beauty and variety of the molecular palette.

So what is the theory behind overdosing? Malle tells Glass Petal Smoke, “There are two ways of overdosing. One can use a raw material and build the rest of the fragrance against it, like a painter would put a big mass of red on one side for instance, and compose the rest of his work to counterbalance it. The other way is to overdose a texturing raw material like Iso E or Galaxolide® as a base (almost like alcohol) and dilute the rest of the composition into it. By doing so, some raw materials like the two I just named, which were originally designed to be back notes, work during the entire evaporation. One can also say that the products that we choose to overdose are often complex enough and almost interesting enough to be perfumes of their own.” (Perfumer Geza Schön, of Escentric Molecules, brings attention to Iso E Super® and Ambroxan molecules by creating fragrances based on each raw material and complementing the singular compositions with a sister fragrance that utilizes the molecule in combination with other ingredients. It is an architectural approach that is at once scientific and emotional.)

A raw material in Dans Tes Bras that is not listed in the brochure is Michelia alba, a variety of Magnolia that has served as Roucel’s muse and has appeared in all of his fragrance creations since 1993 (it was christened in Tocade). Perfumistas who follow Roucel’s work and have a keen sense of smell will detect his signature even though Michelia alba is very lightly dosed. When asked why the expensive raw material wasn’t mentioned, Malle replies, “The list of ingredients can generate emotions, but they are often unrelated to the fragrance, as the list of ingredients doesn’t disclose the dosages. It is also a means to manipulate people that marketing companies employ, something that I refuse to do, as I believe that only the final result counts. We make fragrances, not recipes.”

Wittingly or not, Frederic Malle owns the recipe for success in niche fragrances. An intrepid pioneer, he promotes the art of perfumery and has proven what every true perfume lover knows; that the real celebrity in the business of fine fragrance is the perfume itself.

Notes:

Dans Tes Bras will be available at U.S. counters in November.

Perfume Memories: Seeing with Scent

First steps, first kiss, first love—memory is especially fond of embracing events that shape fundamental life experience. I’ve often marveled at the life of Louis Braille, who accidentally blinded himself while playing with one of his father’s awls at the age of three. The memory of his childhood accident could have easily remained a haunting vignette, to be played over and over again whenever he became frustrated at his inability to see. Fortunately for Braille, his love of literature was stronger than the obstacles of blindness and self pity, and in 1842 he invented the raised dot alphabet that allows the blind to read by touch. One of the tools he used to create the braille alphabet was a stylus; a blunt awl related to the same tool that caused him to lose his sight. Today, a person can run their fingers across an elevator’s button panel and experience the transformation of tragedy into a beautiful gift.

I was eight-years-old when I first read Louis Braille: The Boy Who Invented Books for the Blind by Margaret Davidson. The original imprint included Braille’s raised dot alphabet on the back cover. I can still recall the tactile sensation of the dots beneath my fingertips, the way they asserted themselves in a ticklish sort of way. I also remember how I began sobbing when I read about Braille's accident. Children relate to stories in literal ways as they learn to reconcile the suspension of reality with the truth of the world around them. I was prescribed glasses that year and the idea that a person could lose their vision was frightening and made me feel immensely sorry for Louis. In addition, the leather awl responsible for Louis Braille’s accident was the same tool I played with in my father’s garment shop when I was making collages out of leather scraps. Both of our fathers told us not to play with tools that could potentially harm us. I was lucky. Braille was not.

Two years later, my fifth grade class visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Of all the sights and scents that we encountered there, there was one particular area that affected me profoundly. It was a small, circular garden designed for the sight impaired. Brass plaques identified patches where fragrant plants grew, each marker revealing the genus and species of flora that grew near it. The plaques were inscribed in English and braille. I remember running my fingers across the sun-warmed metal plates, experiencing the functional sensation of braille text as opposed to the embossed alphabet that appeared on the back of Margaret Davidson’s book. I can still see the trail of my ten-year-old fingers glossing over the patinated glyphs.

The Fragrance Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was designed by landscape architect Alice Recknagel Ireys in 1955 and was the first public garden in the United States designed for the sight-impaired. What continues to make this garden so endearing is the fact that visitors are permitted to touch the plants so they can smell the aromas on their hands. I touched many plants on my first visit to The Fragrance Garden, but the plant that fascinated me most was an herb called Lemon Balm. Until that encounter, my notion of lemon was round, yellow and bursting with juice. Within seconds of discovering Lemon Balm new concepts were added to my impression of lemon, including soft, green and leafy qualities. In that moment something dormant in my soul began to emerge that was familiar and primal. As a result, I became anchored in the notion that that the sense of smell was special and though I did not have the vocabulary at the time, I remember feeling a sense of something worshipful and eternal. Because of this childhood learning experience Lemon Balm continues to be a favorite herb that is catalogued in my memory like a primary color. To forget Lemon Balm would be like forgetting the sun.

It is easy for the sighted to have empathy for the visually impaired as our culture is first and foremost a visual culture. For the sighted, to imagine existence without vision is quite distressing. Those with vision can sometimes forget the extent to which human beings are resilient. It is not uncommon to find increased acuity in taste, touch, smell and hearing in people who have visual limitations. Olivier Baussan, founder of the French cosmetics and fragrance company L’Occitane, learned this lesson when he encountered a blind woman identifying perfumes by smell as she had no other way to determine the difference from one product to the next. Baussan was fascinated and deeply moved. In 1997 braille was added to all L’Occitane packaging, followed by the creation of perfumery classes for visually impaired children and adolescents (one of several charitable programs run by Fondation L’Occitane). Students focus on using the skills they have versus the ones they lack; a compassionate and appropriate approach to teaching.

In the United States the sense of smell is not a sense that is commonly explored in grade school, let alone high school or college. Sharon Longert was my fifth grade teacher at P.S. 33 in the Bronx and her decision to take our class to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden changed my life. I googled her and found out that she is still involved in education and now focuses on helping high school students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. I hope there are many other “Mrs. Longerts” in the world, educating students on the wonders of the sense of smell. Their role is crucial to inspiring professional pursuits in the fields of flavor and fragrance. Teachers have a profound influence on students. The effects of educator Annie Sullivan Macy’s lessons were not lost on Helen Keller, who navigated in a world without the benefit of sight or hearing. Helen Keller understood the power of scent and described it best, “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.” Where will your scent memories take you?

Notes:
Gaël Peltier is an independent, blind perfumer who conducts perfumery classes for the blind on behalf of L’Occitane. Fondation L’Occitane is currently helping him acquire a talking scale that will help him take precise measurements. Mr. Peltier’s picture is at the top of this post and is from the Fondation L'Occitane website. A photo of students from last year's L'Occitane class was provided by the company. It appears in the second to last paragraph and can be viewed in true size if you click on it.

The American Foundation for the Blind helps connect prospective students with Fondation L'Occitane's perfumery classes for the visually impaired.  If you know a blind child from the U.S. (age 14-16) who would like to participate in the program, check the website for 2009 applications. Accommodations for the child and a chaperone are covered by Fondation L'Occitane.

Photos of The Brooklyn Botanic Garden are from their website.

On April 24, 2009, this story received a FiFi Award Nomination from the Fragrance Foundation and took second place in the "Editorial Excellence in Fragrance Coverage" category. The award is historical as 2009 was the first year that blogs were included in the "Editorial Excellence"category.