I burnt my toast this morning. I opened the windows, but the smell stayed in the kitchen for ages.  That started me thinking about smells.

People have five senses – sense of sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell. Our sense of smell is much more sensitive than our sense of taste. That’s why, when we have a cold and can’t smell anything, the food we eat doesn’t seem very interesting.

Our sense of taste only tells us whether something is sweet, or sour (like lemons), salty, or bitter. Coffee and unsweetened chocolate are bitter.

But smell is so much more. Even if I am tired and don’t feel hungry, the smell of onions frying in butter, or the smell of cheese on toast, will wake up my appetite.

For most people, smells connect strongly with memory.  Can you remember the smell of your classroom in elementary school? I can’t, but I am sure if I smelt that particular smell again – I would recognize it.

Being a words person, I started thinking about the different words we use in English for smell. Another word that has the same meaning as smell is odour.

Then there are positive words like aroma, bouquet, perfume, scent, fragrance; and negative ones like stink, reek and pong.

Words like perfume and scent are used mostly for flowers, while aroma is used for food and coffee. Bouquet is a word used to describe the fragrance of wine.

In another blog post, I’m going to write about a new “taste” word I learned – umami.

In your language do you have many different words for smell?

Are there some food aromas that wake up your appetite?

What smell memories do you have?

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