#entry 4

Olfactory memories

Let’s talk about food, but not in traditional way. I mean, this is not an article about diet or how to be the new Rachel Ray! I want to talk about how food can bring good memories, and we don't even need to eat it. Just feeling the smell makes us recall important moments of our lives. And I didn’t know that until I left my home town.

I can remember the exact moment that I had my first “olfactory memory”. I was leaving the Unisinos campus and I passed by the cafeteria when I felt that magnificent scent! And I didn’t feel not only the food’s perfume, I felt like I was a child again. That evening, in the cafeteria menu there was chicken soup. My mammy and my grandmother used to cook chicken soup at least once a week (but I could eat it every day).

I also remember that I didn’t know that this feeling had a name. A friend who was walking with me and witnessed my reaction, immediately spoke: “This is a olfactory memory”. Since that day I have been having a huge quantity of “olfactory memories”!!! And they have been so good!

I can have “olfactory memories” when I smell coriander handful or when a cake is baking… I think I am a lucky person by having good things to recall. 

Today I went more far than olfactory memory. I decided to cook one of my mammy’s specialties: chicken risotto. It is not a sophisticated recipe. It is so simple, so simple that I guess that is this simplicity that make this risotto so good. In my lunch time today, I felt not only my childhood scent, but I also tasted the flavor.

Chicken risotto, one of my mammy's specialties