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Smell? What smell?
I remember about 15 years ago I was staying in an apartment hotel in Toronto’s Chinatown district when I was almost overcome by the stink emanating from down the hall. Venturing nervously towards the source of the odour, I found myself in the presence of an oddly shaped spiky vegetable-like thingy that I now know to be a durian—a fruit that is widely used in south Asia and that is notorious for its smell. The resident had left the fruit in the hallway, allowing others to share the fumes, presumably because it was too strong- smelling to be left in his apartment. Perhaps, however, he had stumbled onto an object that could be marketed as an organic burglar repellent.
The durian has its supporters and its detractors. Food writer Richard Sterling wrote “its odour is best described as…turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away.” The late Anthony Bourdain defended it with equal vigour. Calling its taste “indescribable”—I think he meant that as a compliment—he did admit that if you tasted it “your breath will smell as if you’d been French kissing your dead grandmother.”
I am interested, in principle, in encountering the durian again because over the intervening years, I have gradually lost my sense of smell. The condition of diminished capacity to smell is known as anosmia, and it is said to affect about two million Americans, or about one in 150. Going face to face with a durian would be an excellent test to determine whether I still retain any residual capacity to smell, or whether I have truly lost it.
And now I learn I can try for an alternative— the corpse flower. According to the Bloedel Conservatory in Vancouver, this largest plant in the world is on the cusp of blooming, at which time It will release an aroma that has been compared to the smell of used diapers or hot garbage. It might be worth the air fare just to go and do a check of my reaction to the corpse flower on top of the durian—the same way that scientists always like to replicate an experiment before they consider a theory proved, or athletes always submit a double urine sample.
Funnily enough, my sense of taste is unaffected. Once I put something in my mouth, the buds seem to slip into overdrive and I experience the full sensation my smell sense would have been priming me for. I would like to say that my other sensations of touch, sight and hearing are enhanced by way of some sort of neuroplastic compensation, but it’s not so.
Obviously, I miss the pleasures of an active sense of smell. I liked to smell a fresh flower, or a distinct perfume, or an apple pie in the oven. And I would certainly not be the first person to turn to when there is a need for someone to be the canary in the coalmine to detect a gas leak. But there are plenty of opportunities for me to make use of my newfound resistance to odours. My family is quite happy for me to assume the role of senior roadkill identifier (“Yes, folks, that is one dead skunk in the middle of the road. I recognize the distinctive black and white coat. Whether it’s stinking to high heaven or not I can’t say.”).
Just think of all the opportunities my anosmia will give me to enjoy life while others can’t. When there is a strong wind blowing from the east, for example, and the air is pregnant with ‘eau de mushroom plant,’ I can be sitting in my yard enjoying a tall cold one while others cower inside praying for a wind shift. And to complete the picture, I’ll be enjoying it with a generous serving of Limburger cheese.
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