Being nosey

When I go riding early in the morning, on the back roads, I sometimes pass houses where breakfast is being prepared. The powerful culinary aromas floating to the road are indescribably compelling, instantly opening my appetite and making me wish that I would be invited in to partake of the meal.

I often imagine that people in the household are having their hearty breakfast with homemade bread or a thick slab of hot roasted coconut bake, lathered with melted butter or margarine and washed down with hot cocoa, coffee or tea. The tea might be something shop-bought, or a home brew created using herbs from the garden – tulsi, moringa, fever grass, carailli...plants that most people have growing around their homes.

Recently a friend gave me the gift of a glass coffee/tea mug with simple line drawings of cats on it. As soon as I saw the clear glass of the mug it triggered a memory, transporting me back to childhood vacations in St Vincent where, in (paternal) Granny’s kitchen, we would sit at the table drinking hot cocoa in clear glass mugs or teacups. I’ve never seen or used glass mugs/teacups otherwise, which is possibly why the memory of that particular kitchen experience came so strongly upon receiving the gift from my friend.

Visual, olfactory and auditory stimuli can evoke strong memories. In fact, all of our senses can be engaged in a memory to the extent that we are transported to a specific time and place in a way that, for a moment, makes it seem a reality.

The mental visual of drinking cocoa from those clear glass tea cups was accompanied by the memory of the smell of guava, which always seemed to fill our paternal grandparents’ kitchen where guava jam and guava cheese were always being made. Even as I write, I can taste the guava treats, feel their texture, and see the thick slabs of fresh homemade bread (also with its own smell) onto which the jam would be spread.

More than any of our other senses, smell is most closely linked with memory. Sometimes a smell can trigger, out of the blue, the recollection of a long-forgotten incident or experience – pleasant or not.

For example, I have the childhood memory of running in a tonka bean race at primary school sports day. Maybe I was not feeling too well that day, so the smell of the tonka bean on the spoon was repulsive – to the extent that even to this day, the mere mention of the words "tonka bean" automatically evokes an impression of the smell and the recollection of a mildly unsettled emotional feeling. Smell and emotion are closely linked.

Some researchers have stated that the olfactory sense is the one most highly developed in the period from birth to approximately ten years of age. As smell and emotion are stored as one memory, this period of childhood is the time during which we are most likely to develop the awareness of smells we like or dislike throughout life.

If someone asked me to describe what "a beach" smells like, what might first come to mind is my impression of beaches as a child – the smell of salty air and sea grapes. However, I have noticed that, in adulthood, that scent is rare – maybe because there are fewer sea grape trees...or because the days are hotter and (I find) scents are usually stronger in cooler temperatures...or other scents like piles of seaweed, garbage or carcasses on some beaches offer olfactory competition.

Aromatherapy is popular. Not only is it used in spa settings, but as a branding "tool," some businesses infuse the air with signature scents that are pleasing to the average customer, triggering certain emotions and stimulating that part of the mind that connects with the memory of the (hopefully pleasant) in-store experience. We (generally speaking) take the power of our noses for granted. The capacity to attract or repel using specific scents can be used strategically.

For example, if technology enabled us to record and capture smells and use them in the marketing of TT online and at trade shows, what smells would be our national signature? Which ones would lure travellers to our shores? Which ones would be stored in our visitors’ systems as triggers for pleasant memories?