Smell this column and remember well

May we ask you, gentle reader, to hold this column up to your nose (sorry, online readers!) and breathe in deep. If you happen to be the first one in the household to open up this paper with the newsprint still undisturbed – and if you’re lucky enough to not have pollution completely kill your olfactory nerves – chances are that the smell of ink on paper mixed with these words will set off at least one strong memory. Each one’s memory to his or her own. But like the protagonist in Marcel Proust’s masterpiece, ‘In Search of Lost Time‘, who is hurtled back into boyhood the moment he smells the shortcake he has dipped into his tea, you, too, will find something from the past unlocked by this specific smell.

In Barcelona, an ice-cream company is using the science and art of mixing aromas to make ice-cream flavours custom-made to trigger memories. Mama Heladera‘s founder Irene Iborra is a master memory releaser. Using neurogastronomy – the study of flavours and how they affect cognition and memory – Iborra can trigger, among many other smellscapes, aroma-memories of pine needles, maple syrup and wintry snow. We’re still in the beta stage. But if you want a memory of the smell of your grandmother’s cooked breakfast with a dash of AIR’s signature tune, let us know. And do hold your breath, until you inhale this column again tomorrow.