The Magic of Smell and Taste

There are regular readers of Glass Petal Smoke and those who discover the blog by algothrimic happenstance. The most interesting email inquiries come from the later, who are “flavor and fragrance curious.” Something inside of them wakes up when they read about the power of smell and taste, and how deeply these two senses are tied to memory.

Once a person has opened up to their senses it's as if they’ve found a long lost friend, a companion that was always by their side, but until that point of discovery remained in the shadows. This new found awareness may prompt provocative questions insinuated by doubt, such as this one from the UK, “Are flavor and fragrance enthusiasts simply self-indulgent nostalgists?”

Appreciation of flavor and fragrance isn’t solely driven by a desire to go back in time; it’s more of a desire for return; return accompanied by present day knowledge and experience. The awareness that transpires as a result of sensorial discovery results in spiritual equilibrium, the fulcrum on which truth and mystery are perfectly balanced. Flavor and fragrance are a catalyst for sustenance and soul, the desire for reconciliation between the seen and unseen; it’s why Glass Petal Smoke exists.

When someone wears a perfume or tastes a delightful flavor for the first time, a part of them merges with everything the creator of that experience has encountered (perfumer or chef) up until the moment of that specific sensory creation. There is a synchrony that erases time as we know it, makes friends of strangers, linking life experiences into a greater eternal whole; a “collective sensory unconscious” that is deeply engaging. It is from this powerful source that myths, as well as true stories about scent and taste, spring forth.

Does this mean there aren’t any self-indulgent nostalgists lurking about? Absolutely not, but what it does mean is that the experience of scent and taste is a powerful force that can transcend the ordinary world as we know it. If we don’t become overly attached to the things we are attracted to or the things we wish to avoid, we can find inner peace in our common humanity; something the world can always use in large helpings.

Notes:

The image that accompanies this post is by Edmund Dulac and is titled "Stealers of Light." 

Inside the Olfactory Mind of Dr. Roman Kaiser

Roman Kaiser is a native of Switzerland. He is a chemist, naturalist and perfumer. Dr. Kaiser has spent a good part of his professional life analyzing plants and their scents. In his new book, Scent of the Vanishing Flora, he shares details on 267 endangered flowers that are disappearing due to habitat loss. He has graciously agreed to take the Glass Petal Smoke "Sensory Questionnaire" and share his flavor and fragrance memories. 

 1.  What does your sense of smell mean to you?

The sense of smell adds a dimension of perception to my life which is, in its intensity, equal to the sense of vision and hearing. Although I always had a high affinity to this perception it developed immensely during my forty years of studying natural scents at Givaudan. During this time I evaluated around 9000 scented plant species from which I had the opportunity to study an additional 2700 plants on the same scientific level. This broad olfactory experience with scents helps me to understand many things I encounter in this world, which also brings me also closer to people around me. Not less important is the fact that the sense of smell enormously enhances my acoustic and visual perception and, to a certain degree, vice versa. Thus, if I hear Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” the corresponding typical scents, as you would experience them in my home country of Switzerland, become active in my olfactory mind.

 2.  What are some of your strongest scent memories?

At the age of 12 I had to spend a rather long time in a hospital. One of the nurses always smelled of a famous fougère soap which is still available today. She was always kind to me and in this situation I associated the scent with all of the things that make life worth living.

Earlier, when I was a small boy, I discovered a place in a nearby forest with huge amounts of wild strawberries, a secret place which I never failed to visit. This is certainly the reason why I understand the strawberry’s olfactory concept very well.

Another discovery I made around this time was in a sun-flooded pine forest in the foothills of our region. There was a group of plants with flower stems rising to a height of 30 centimeters, each with as many as 15 to 20 dark purple-red flowers which had a wonderful vanilla-like and aromatic spicy fragrance. This fragrance helped to imprint the plant’s visual appearance so that 25 years later, when I started to study orchids in more detail, it came back to my mind and I could identify it before seeing it again as Epipactis atrorubens. I went back to this habitat and was happy to find this population still existing and see that it was, indeed, Epipactis atrorubens, the so-called Dark Red Helleborine.

 3.  What are some of your favorite smells (things in nature, cooking and/or your environment)?

Fully ripe lemon fruits which one may find along the Amalfi coast in Italy. I was so attracted to this scent that I studied it in more detail in the mid 1980’s. As a result I discovered that methyl epi-jasmonate is strongly accumulated on the peel surface and gives this unique far-reaching hesperidic floral note.

It is no wonder that I also feel drawn to the scent of the To-yo-ran Orchid Cymbidium goeringii. This flower scent is also very rich in methyl epi-jasmonate and related jasminoid compounds.

Another of my favorite scents is the olfactory ambiance along a Mediterranean pine forest during a sunny afternoon. As I finally discovered the characteristic part of this scent, a wonderful musky-woody note was arising, not from the needles, the cones or the wood, but from the sunshine-exposed resin. Under such conditions long chain hydroxy acids present in the resin may internally cyclize to macrocyclic lactones* that are responsible for this olfactory delight.

My third favorite smell is one that rises from burning agarwood; the wood of the gods. Many years ago I spent an evening in New York as a guest in a house where high quality agarwood had been transformed into this heavenly incense smoke. It is beyond a simply pleasant smell – it invades your lungs, your entire body and mind, taking total possession of you. You smell it for days, sometimes wondering what it might be and where it might be coming from, then it comes back to your mind as a constant reminder.

 4.  Do you have any favorite smells that are considered strange?

 
No, not really, but people around me sometimes have the idea that I possess a special love for strange scents. For example, they may see me sniffing at wet rocks or snow in the mountains, but there is a good reason for this; on wet rocks you may find certain algae species emitting interesting scents. One species is even capable of degrading carotenoids to beta-ionone and related compounds. Finding a violet-type scent in algae species is quite an experience. At such high altitudes there are also scent producing algae which may be found on snow or ice. Such is the case of Chlamydomonas nivalis, which emits the scent of watermelon.

 5.  Describe one or more of your favorite cooking smells.

The smell developing if you briefly roast cut aubergine in a good olive oil is a real olfactory revelation; it is the aroma that tells you how to use this delicacy in gourmet recipes. An equally fascinating yet quite different smell develops if you briefly roast scallops in high quality olive oil.

 6.  What smells do you most dislike?

Carrion, skunk in action and rotting aubergine.

 
 7.  What smell did you first dislike, but learned to love?

It took me a rather long time to learn how to appreciate the highly characteristic scent of white truffle. One of the reasons might have been my exposure to many olive oils that are over-flavored with white truffle essence. I often had the feeling that they were too strongly fortified with the impact chemical of white truffle, 2,4-dithiapentane, which is, however, a great product at the right dosage.

 8.  What mundane smells inspire you?

Freshly brewed coffee, freshly baked bread, rain after a hot day, and the smell of people as they pass who are wearing a good fragrance.
 

 9.  What scent never fails to take you back in time and why? 

Lime Tree blossom** and frankincense are two characteristic scents of my youth which work exactly in this way. The tender and romantic scent of lime tree blossom is emblematic in Middle Europe for feeling at home and no one has better expressed this than Franz Schubert with the famous song “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore.” This is how I experienced this magnificent tree and its flower scent in my home village near Mount Säntis in eastern Switzerland, magical to all those living around it. It is also admired in cities. What would Zürich’s famous “Bahnhofstrasse” be without the lime tree! Everybody experiencing it during its flowering in June is enthusiastic about it. The most impressive feature of my rather small home village is a baroque church dominating everything. If I recognize frankincense in a fragrance I have to think immediately of these Sunday services I always attended as a boy. I re-experience the sacred music, the glamorous liturgy and this unique scent pervading everything.

 10.  What scents do you associate with memories of loved ones?

 The classic Eau De Cologne 4711 as my mother used it.

 11.  What fragrance(s) remind you of growing up? 

There’s the two I previously mentioned; lime tree blossom and frankincense. Other fragrances that strongly remind me of growing up are also closely connected to my home village which is surrounded by hills and forests. The scents of flowering meadows as well as those of the hay produced from them are imprinted in my olfactory memory. In the forests I could never resist sniffing the pine and fir resin and I even know how they taste. This is because as a boy I read a book which said that the Indians of North America would chew, instead of chewing gum, such tree resins. I was also exposed to beautiful flower scents at a very young age because my father had a nursery and cultivated, among others, roses, sweet peas and all types of spring flowers for the flower trade.

 12. What fragrance(s) remind you of the places you visited on vacation?

The scent of sun exposed pine resin, which I previously described, reminds me of my visits to the Ligurian coast and the Côte d’Azur. But much earlier I became preconditioned to the unique, baroque, aromatic-floral, vanilla and cocoa-related scent of the Black Vanilla Orchid, a rare and precious jewel of our mountain meadows. This fragrance type carries me immediately to the Swiss mountains where we spend some of our vacation days every summer. In a similar way the scent of carnation (type Dianthus caryophyllus) carries me to the very small island of Hoëdic, situated in the Atlantic around 30 kilometers south of Quiberon in France. If you visit this island at the end of June or beginning of July you can already smell the very spicy-floral scent of carnation 300 meters before arriving at the harbor. Exploring this tiny island you will find the source of this unique environmental scent in a countless number of flowering Dianthus gallicus which for me, places Hoëdic among the 100 unforgettable olfactory sceneries of this world.

13.  Describe a piece of sensory literature that is very magical for you.

There are many books in this domain worth reading, but to start I would suggest Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. But do not believe too much in the flower and pollen scent of red beets; they are not as magical as described.

Notes:

*Macrocyclic lactones in plants are usually responsible for their musk aromas.

**Lime Tree is the European reference to the Linden Tree. They are one and the same.

Photograph of dark red helliborine taken by DJS Photography. Many beautiful prints are available for purchase on the website.

Photograph of agarwood (also known as aloeswood and oud) is from Shoyeido, a fine purveyor of agarwood chips for incense burning.

Photograph of Chlamydomonas nivalis growing on an Austrian mountain taken by Petr Jan Juračka.

Photograph of Black Vanilla Orchid from Plas y Brenin. 

Photograph of the alpine strawberry taken by Terry Ferdinand of the BBC.

Photograph of skunk in the act of spraying from PBS.org.

Photograph of frankincense burning on charcoal by Michelle Krell Kydd.  

Photograph of Dr. Roman Kaiser has been provided by Givaudan.

Green Tea Shortbread

Shortbread is a wonder cookie.  It has a delicate crunchy texture that rests on a mantle of sweet buttery goodness. Think you can eat just one?  Think again. Shortbread whispers in your ear.  It taunts and teases until you partake of another luxurious morsel, keenly aware of each melting crumb on your tongue.  The notion strikes you.  Food like this should be illegal. Thank G-d it's not.

Shortbread is a simple affair when it comes to ingredients.  It is comprised of flour, butter, sugar, eggs and a touch of salt.  Non-wheat flours or starches are typically added to alter the texture of the cookie which is made without leavening.  Shortbread's simplicity makes it the perfect canvas for a variety of sweet and savory flavors. Green tea is a great addition to shortbread's flavor repertoire, but finding a recipe that doesn't result in a grassy tasting cookie isn't easy. 

The secret to great tasting Green Tea Shortbread is koicha tea, a form of matcha that is used for making "thick tea" in the Japanese tea ceremony known as chado.  Koicha is more expensive than usucha (known as "thin tea"), the powdered green tea typically found in stores and catalogs.  The beauty of koicha lies in its verdant sweetness and lack of astringency which is why it fetches a higher price than usucha. The price is worth it when you taste the difference. You wouldn't use regular mushrooms in a recipe that called for truffles, would you?

Green Tea Shortbread
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd
Yield: 70 cookies

Ingredients:

·        2 cups all-purpose flour

·        1 tablespoon high quality matcha tea (koicha is best)

·        ⅔ cup organic yellow cornmeal

·        ½ teaspoon non-iodized sea salt

·        ½ cup (plus 5 tablespoons) unsalted butter (room temperature/softened)

·        ½ cup (plus 3 tablespoons) organic cane sugar

·        2 large eggs, at room temperature

·        1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon almond extract

Instructions:

·        Divide oven racks into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F.

·        Line two baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set aside.

·        In a medium mixing bowl, sift and combine the flour, cornmeal, salt and matcha tea. Mix well with a large silicone spatula.  The resulting mixture will light green in color.

·        Soften butter in the microwave for 15-30 seconds.  It should be softened (not warm or transparent) when it is done.

·        Cream the butter and sugar.  In a separate bowl beat the two eggs and almond extract.

·        Add the butter mixture to the egg mixture and incorporate.

·        Combine wet ingredients with dry ones.  Work the dough with the spatula for two minutes. The dough should be slightly resistant (not overly tacky or hard).

·        Shape one teaspoonful of dough at a time by placing it between your hands and rolling it between the centers of your palms, pressing down very slightly.  Place onto baking sheet in seven rows of five cookies each.

·        Bake for 15 minutes, turning and reversing trays from top to bottom at 7.5 minutes and continuing to bake for another 7.5 minutes or until slightly golden around the edges.

·        Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

·        Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

Ito En Matcha-Banreki No Mukashi and Upton Tea Thick Matcha Mathuno Mukashi are great choices for making Glass Petal Smoke's Green Tea Shortbread. If you would like to experience a traditional tea ceremony and live in New York City you can visit the Urasenke Chanoyu Center of New York. Demonstrations take place monthly and there is a series of classes offered as well.

Brigette-Keks® Letter Message Cookie Press from Germany is finally available in the U.S.  It was used to imprint the cookies in the photo that accompanies this post.  You can follow your own muse and use any kind of small embellishment in the center of the cookie that you like.

Photograph of tea cookies by Michelle Krell Kydd.

Rum Raisin Scones

Some flavor combinations speak for themselves; rum raisin is one of them. Though this recipe requires a bit of preparation (you have to macerate the raisins and get them good and drunk) the baking experience has an interesting perk. As the scones bake the spiced sugar and cream topping caramelizes around the pastry, leaving the baker with little bits of candy to eat once the scrumptious treats have cooled down. Talk about just desserts...

Rum Raisin Scones
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd
Yield: Two Dozen

 Ingredients:

•  4 cups all-purpose flour
•  2/3 cup organic cane sugar
•  4 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum-free)
•  1/4 teaspoon sea salt
•  2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cassia cinnamon (Chinese Tung-Ting variety)
•  2 teaspoons ground green cardamom
•  2/3 cup unsalted sweet butter (chilled)
•  2 large organic eggs (beaten)
•  1 cup heavy whipping cream plus 2 tablespoons Mexican vanilla extract (for wet scone mixture)
•  1/3 cup heavy whipping cream plus 1 tablespoon Mexican vanilla extract (for brushing hand-formed scones)
•  6 ounces Thompson seedless raisins (organic, jumbo)
•  1 1/2 cups light rum plus 1 tablespoon Mexican vanilla extract (for soaking the raisins)
• For topping: 1/4 – 1/2 cup Spiced Vanilla Sugar from The Savory Spice Shop. To make your own mix 1/2 teaspoon cassia cinnamon, 1/8 tsp ground green cardamom, a pinch of ground allspice and a pinch of mace with 1/2 cup organic turbinado sugar.

Instructions:

•  The day before you bake the scones, fill a mason jar with raisins, vanilla and rum (just enough to cover the raisins). Keep in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Strain and reserve the rum for future infusions.
•  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
•  Preheat oven to 375 degrees, dividing racks into thirds.
•  In a large bowl, combine sifted flour, sugar, spices, baking powder and salt.
•  Put butter on a cutting board and cut lengthwise, forming halves. Half the halves and cut into quarters. The bits of butter should look like square buds.
•  Add butter to dry ingredients, coating well. Pinch each bud into flat petals and incorporate butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
•  In a small bowl, beat egg and vanilla. Incorporate cream (do not beat cream, gently mix). Add rum soaked raisins.
• Gently mix dry ingredients with wet ones by hand.
• Form scones by hand and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets. 12 scones (4 rows of 3) will fit on each of the baking sheets. 
• Brush the tops of the scones with vanilla infused cream. Sprinkle each scone with spiced sugar.
• Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes, moving trays form top to bottom and reversing when half done to ensure even baking. The bottom of the scones should be a light tan when they are done. Serve scones warm or set on cooling racks and refrigerate/freeze for future use.

Notes:
Mexican vanilla has a rich and creamy quality that is well suited to spiced pastry. Spiced Vanilla Sugar from the Savory Spice Shop is preferred as a topping for these scones. Photograph of scones by Michelle Krell Kydd, editor of Glass Petal Smoke.