I was at Bristol Airport again this morning. Sadly, not with the intention of flying anywhere, but to drop off friends who were. The balmy 16c they left behind soon to be replaced by a more than pleasant 25c. I reckon I could live with that, preferably for the rest of my life, but I won’t be because I live in England and 25c is a bit of a rarity. Instead, I made do with a few minutes of plane spotting once drop-off duties had been completed. Having seen a few Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s – sadly the TUI Boeing 787 Dreamliner wasn’t scheduled to take off for hours – I called it a day, but not before one of the aforementioned Airbuses passed close to where I was standing and gave me a gorgeous whiff of kerosene, AKA aircraft fuel. It is a smell to die for – possibly literally – and it’s right up there with my favourite smells.
In the days when we visited Corfu for our annual holiday, the first thing I would look forward to was the smell of the kerosene combined with the local flora. Then, I kind of knew we had arrived. It was a far better smell when landing late at night for reasons I don’t really understand and I’d swear, in the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that the smell is unique to Corfu. But then, I’ve always enjoyed the smell of certain types of burning fuel.
Take Speedway. When I was young, the Bristol Bulldogs raced at Eastville Stadium and you could smell the smell of fuel mingling with that of the gasworks and the nearby River Frome. I had absolutely no idea what the smell was although a cursory glance at the internet suggests it was Castrol R, whatever that is. Either way, I breathed in as much of it as a small should have which, who knows, created the asthma I picked up in middle age. Smells certainly take you back to a different time and place.
There are few better smells than frying onions. This is a matter of fact. And when I smell frying onions, I am immediately transported back to the West Bay burger shacks of the 1970s where I spent much of my time as a lad. I only had a burger with fried onions. Back then, the very idea of putting something else in a burger, like cheese, appalled me. These days, I cannot live without cheese in my burger, but I draw the line at filthy pickles and, indeed, anything healthy that someone wants to put in them. Look, if I wanted to eat something healthy, I wouldn’t have a burger, would I? I wouldn’t have a bread and dripping sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes, so why spoil a burger?
I am certainly not on the moral high ground when it comes to my food. I am concerned about cruelty to animals, witness my loathing of horse racing, but my diet includes far too much from things that used to be alive. But it’s the sodding smell again that does my head in. I’ve known a few people who became vegetarians, only to lapse disastrously at the first scent of grilling bacon. I’d have the same problem with a sizzling steak, too. In any ideal world, the pigs and cows that appear on my plate should be left to wander freely but they smell so bloody good.
My mother’s side of the family came from Rotterdam in the Netherlands and again when I go back, it’s the smells I remember. The apartments I visited and stayed in all had huge numbers of plants and the aromas were incredible. I have no idea what kind of plants and flowers they were, although one type may have been varieties of cacti. But there were three more smells which dominated my senses. Coffee, Chips with mayonnaise and warm peanuts.
It seemed to me that everyone Dutch drank several gallons of coffee every day. Never the instant variety which I still regard as sacrilege, but always strong filter coffee. In so many places, the smell was overpoweringly heavenly. These days, you’re more likely to find anything but coffee in a Dutch coffee shop, but to be honest the smell of a decent spliff – and don’t try this at home, kids – takes some beating. It doesn’t appear in my top three Dutch smells, though. Patat (chips) with mayo (or frite sauce, which I have always found too sweet) can be bought all over the place in Rotterdam and it’s essentially a heart attack in a cone. In other words, it smells and tastes great. And last, a smell I haven’t smelt in decades, warm peanuts. As a child, my mum would take me around Rotterdam and there would be people selling hot peanuts. You don’t come across with them anymore. I wonder if that’s because of the dangers of anaphylaxis floating in the air? Either way, I could eat them by the kilo and often did.
When I worked for the dysfunctional brain injury charity Headway, I came across people who through their injuries lost their sense of taste and smell. Given the joys I get from both tasting and smelling things, I’d be mortified if I lost either, although I suppose I’d be able to manage a more varied diet if I couldn’t smell various foods I won’t currently touch.
It’s all coming back to me now. Freshly baked bread, a fine real ale, liniment in the football changing room – I’ll bet you have some favourites, too?
