I have been writing a column for more than 10 years about everything that “tastes” like home. But without the sense of smell, we would truly have no sense of taste.
I recently read that 75 percent of our emotions are triggered by smell. If you want to remember your childhood, open up a box of crayons; 85 percent of us say that is the most evocative smell of being a kid. (I would have thought it would be Campbell’s soup or mud.)
We kept a tin of crayons under the couch for coloring at home. I bet you a dollar for a doughnut that it is still there under my mother’s sofa. I will check on my next visit up north. How nice that coloring has come back in style. Lesson learned, hold on to your crayons. Was there anything better than the 64 pack with the built-in sharpener? Talk about crayon envy!
My daughter’s friend Brittany recently shared a story with me that warmed my heart. After high school she moved south. She was telling her grandpa in Annandale that she was very homesick. She missed everything including the smell of the wood stove. Being the thoughtful grandpa that he was, he climbed up on the roof with an ice cream bucket. He then caught the smoke from the chimney and sealed it in the covered bucket. He brought her the bucket on his next visit and it worked!
She opened the lid a crack, and it smelled just like home. She now keeps this bucket and still uses it now and then to remind her of home. I am not sure what I love most about this story, the thought of smelling smoke to heal homesickness or having a grandpa who would capture bucket of smoke for her. I know this is something my dad and mom would do for me.
I too equate the smell of the home with wood smoke. My entire childhood I slept in the bedroom above the woodstove. My wake up call was my dad stoking the stove in the morning. The smell of maple wood smoke would waft up through the floorboards as a sign that it was time to rise and shine. I do also remember the smell of cutting wood because that wood for the stove didn’t just magically appear in the woodshed. There was lots of cutting and hauling throughout the fall and then the daily carrying wood after school. We now heat with propane. I wonder what will be my child’s “smell of home”? I bet it will be the smell of chocolate!
“Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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