The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

kinesthetic experiences. Television and the movies do everything they can to involve

us emotionally by capitalizing on every nuance of our sight and sound senses. They

even go so far as to wrap it around us like a cocoon in “virtual reality” games. If anyone

ever figures out a way to incorporate smell into the movie-going experience, (the way

cologne manufacturers have with magazine inserts), box office sales will go through the

roof. They will have our heartstrings.

We have inside us albums of memories just waiting to be opened bysmell. The

fragrance of fresh cut grass can immediately flood your being with sensation

memories, of childhood, of Summer, the heat of sun, the cool of dew. You are

magically two feet shorter and engrossed in an inner world of olfactory holograms.

Another time, the ephemeral whiff of a familiar cologne instantaneously conjures up the

face of a long ago lover, the warmth of a body pressed against you in embrace, or the

quiet tranquility of langorous time alone. And on and on through the fragrant canyons

of our memories. Smell can trigger paroxisms of emotions, veritable avalanches of

emotion.

It’s a good thing that our brains also easily habituate to smells. We consciously

smell something only when it is newly introduced. Within seconds the brain turns off its

sensitivity and we are no longer aware of it. Sit in a smoke-filled room, or beside with

a wet dog, or near food cooking. After a few minutes you won’t be able to smell it. Go

outside and breathe different, new air. Return to the room and you will again sense the

“

new” smell. It’s a protective device our brains evolved to keep us from being

overloaded with information. Otherwise we would be walking zombies, adrift in

hallucinatory smell-induced reveries.

We also know that the sense of taste that we think is centered in our mouths

really only detects four qualities: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The rest of our “taste” is

in our noses. It’s the nose that has myriads of specialized receptors to detect the

crowded universe of compounds that make up the foods we eat. It’s the nose that

saved our animal forebears (from being only three-bears) by differentiating what was

edible from what was poisonous. By the time it was in the mouth, it would have been

too late. Which explains why you can’t taste Mom’s chicken soup when you have a

head cold. The rhino-virus has knocked out the receptor cells.

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Country Cooking