Artificial Grape Flavor and Bananas
Ever heard that your olfactory memory is one of the strongest? Scents, smells and flavors are stored in our memories in a way that can feel like you can transport yourself back to a time and place in the past. That's why you'll come across "life hacks" suggesting you wear a certain perfume on your holiday or wedding, so you can later smell it and be transported back to that day.
I've started consciously smelling things when traveling in order to try to capture the scent of that moment. To allow my brain to transport me back there when I smell that scent again.
I used to only wear one perfume, but recently broadened my rule of having a "signature scent" to varying it based on the day or occasion. When I read all the Gossip Girl books as a teenager (yes, the show was originally based on 13 books by Cecily von Ziegesar), I was inspired by Serena van der Woodsen, who apparently had a signature scent of patchouli and sandalwood. Why I remember these specific details is still a mystery to me, but this one obviously left a deep impression.
Scents are very close to flavors, which are also captured by our olefactory receptors and taste buds and processed in our brain. This is why a meal can transport you back to your childhood and provoke happy memories.
One weird flavor that caught me off guard when I was in my early teens was artificial grape flavor.
We'd been gifted scented felt pens. The moment I opened the purple one, this odd familiarity and happy sensation flooded my nervous system.
Why?
As a toddler, I lived in the USA, and I have a strong feeling that at the playgroups I must have drunk grape juice containing artificial grape flavor. I have no actual memory of this. Just the feeling that the smell of that felt pen had somehow transported me somewhere I couldn't consciously remember.
Banana flavor, on the other hand, is negatively associated in my mind, and it has taken me a long time to enjoy bananas again.
Why?
As a young child, I was given liquid antibiotics with banana flavor. The circumstances were not great, hence neither are the associated memories of that time. The flavor they chose to mask the pungent antibiotics was that of ripe bananas.
Bananas are great to eat before sports, and at one point I decided to make an active effort to tolerate them. I started off with rather green ones, where the flavor is faint due to them being underripe. I still cannot eat brown ones as the taste repulses me.
On a recent trip to Madeira, an island in the Atlantic and an autonomous region of Portugal, I surprised myself by enjoying the variety of bananas.
Once again, I realized the bounty of delicious fruit that exists in different parts of the world and how we may be able to cultivate and transport certain varieties all over the world. The most flavorful ones, however, will always be found at their origin and are not necessarily the ones cultivated for large quantities and export.
There were four different commercially available bananas, and I was told that a total of 28 varieties of bananas can be found across the island, most of them growing in the backyards of homes.
And somehow, I think that's part of what makes these experiences so interesting.
Between scents and flavors, we can therefore wire our brains and use this to our advantage. One of my very good friends taught me the concept of collecting "Marmelade glass moments" (German: "Marmeladenglasmomente"). They're moments that you want to preserve forever.
Like taking fruit in summer and making jam out of it to enjoy the sweet, fruity flavor in winter.
Following that idea, these moments can be "saved" through associations with scents and flavors in our olfactory memory. A smell or taste can bring back a feeling, a place or a moment that we thought we'd forgotten.
Just a thought. Take it or leave it.
I like my "Marmelade glass moments" and want to treasure and revisit them as often as possible.
xoxo F
