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I was going to do wine, but the subject is vast and I suspect many other bloggers will choose this topic. So I am going with this flowering vine which some regard as a weed, because it grows rapidly and can choke out native plants, particularly in the southeastern US.  In China and Japan, it’s considered ornamental, and I personally think it’s beautiful. The vines of Wisteria, which is a member of the pea family, climb by twining around any available support.  The pendulous clusters of Wisteria flowers, called racemes, can be purple, violet, pink or white, and have a very mild fragrance; the most fragrant species is Chinese. The vines can climb as high as 20 m above the ground and spread out 10 m laterally. The world’s largest known Wisteria vine is of the Chinese lavender variety. It was planted in Sierra Madre, California, in 1894 and measures more than 1 acre in size and weighs 250 tons. Purple Wisteria used to cover the back of the old house in which I grew up, and I remember sitting on the back porch, listening to baseball games on the radio and the sound of the bees busying themselves with what the wisteria had to offer.  With the sheer amount of wisteria blossoms on our house, you could definitely smell their sweetness, so Wisteria definitely holds some nostalgia for me. 0 0

I couldn’t not talk about vanilla, one of the most ubiquitous spices.  Its extract can be used in cakes, cookies, pies, cupcakes etc., but also with meat,  shellfish and fish.   There are many varieties of vanilla, but Mexican, Tahitian, Indonesian and Bourbon (not related to the liquor) are the main ones. Vanilla originated in the country to our south, Mexico, and figures in recipes for Mexican recipes for carrots, flan, shrimp and chicken.  It was first noted in chronicles of a Spanish expedition to central Mexico in the 1520’s, where ground vanilla beans flavored the royal chocolate beverage of Emperor Moctezuma’s court, tlilxochital.  Check out the recipes for Vanilla Balsamic Chicken at http://www.cookinglight.com/food/quick-healthy/easy-chicken-recipes-00412000068136/page55.html and Mexican Braised Chicken with Vanilla: Pollo al vainilla (Karen Graber) at http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/2262-pollo-al-vainilla-braised-chicken-with-vanilla Vanilla extract is made by macerating/percolating chopped vanilla beans in ethyl alcohol and water for approximately 48 hours. After aging for several months, the mixture is filtered. The FDA specifies that pure vanilla extract contain 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon during extraction and a 35% alcohol/65% water mixture. The resulting amber liquid is clear and richly fragrant. You probably don’t know that almost all the extract from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean is now synthetic, and not pure vanilla extract. Natural vanillin is a substance intrinsic to the vanilla bean, but artificial vanillin is made from wood-pulp by-products. Vanilla flavoring is a blend of pure and imitation vanilla, so check the packaging carefully and look for pure vanilla extract. And don’t forget to inhale its rich, wonderful aroma the next time you open a bottle of vanilla extract.       0 0

Okay, so this is another ick for a letter.  But other than ugli fruit, with which I am not familiar, I couldn’t come up with something beginning with U of any great significance and with a distinct odor. Urine isn’t something people normally talk about, but physicians look at it for content (red and white blood cells, salts etc), color, and odor.  Forensic technologists would do the same. Urine normally doesn’t have a very strong odor, although some food can change urine odor: asparagus is a big culprit.  What people are smelling when they eat asparagus is the breakdown of a sulfur compound called methyl mercaptan (the same compound found in garlic and skunk secretions). But a strong ammonia-like smell might indicate the presence of infection or kidney stones.  The urine of a diabetic can smell sweet, which is why long ago doctors actually tasted urine to make a diagnosis. But urine can also have a strong smell if a person is dehydrated, because the kidney will retain water, and the urine will have higher concentrations of filtrates. Urine gets its yellow color from a pigment called urochrome. That color normally varies from pale yellow to deep amber, depending on the concentration of the urine. Darker urine is usually a sign that you’re not drinking enough fluid, while pale urine indicates you’re drinking a lot of fluid.  Or you could be taking a diuretic, which forces the body to get rid of excess water. Urine can take on lots of other colors: some drugs turn is green or blue, carrots can tint it orange. There is also an inherited disease called porphyria, which is a malfunction in the body’s synthesis of a complex molecule called heme, the oxygen-carrying molecule in your blood.  In this case the urine is the color of port wine. Just one more comment on this unusual topic: urine is sterile and in the absence of clean water to wash a wound, urine can be used.  This was a normal procedure during the Civil War. 0 0

Not a lot of people like the smell of tar.  I could have chosen thyme or tarragon (like anise!) or any number of other herbs, flowers etc., but tar is the first thing that came to mind.  To me, it has a sharp clean smell and is related to the sea and sailing, one of the best things in the world to do. Tar and pitch are produced from coal, wood, petroleum or peat by a process of destructive distillation, which I won’t get into.  It results in an odoriferous mixture of hydrocarbons and free carbon, and historically tar was pine-derived. It played a major role in the economy of colonial America and especially of my home state, North Carolina, because in the days of wooden sailing ships, tar and pitch were was used to preserve the wood against rot and destruction from ship worms.  North Carolina was called the tar or turpentine state and originally North Carolinians were derogatorily called tar boilers. Nowadays, Carolinians in general, and the University of North Carolina sports teams specifically, are called Tar Heels.  There are several stories about how this name came about. One is that the troops of British General Cornwallis during the American Revolutionary War were fording what is now known as the Tar River when they discovered tar had been dumped into the stream to impede their crossing. When they finally got across the river, they found their feet completely black with tar, and the soldiers observed that anyone who waded through North Carolina rivers would acquire “tar heels.”  The most familiar explanation derives from the time of the Civil War.  During one battle in Virginia, the North Carolina troops held their ground while others retreated.  When asked why they held, they said they had tar on their heel, which made them stick in the fight. 0 0

Betcha no one is going to pick sweat for the S! I actually like the smell of well-earned sweat and particularly that of a man.  There is something rather sexy about it.  Or maybe I’m weird. Sweating or perspiration or diaphoresis is the production of fluid by two types of glands in the skin of mammals.  One type, the ecrine glands, is found in the skin all over the body and is the primary source of sweat.  Sweat is mostly water, but it also contains sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium and a variety of trace metals. Our primary means of thermoregulation, the control of our body temperature, is via the evaporation of our sweat. The other type of gland, apocrine glands, also release pheromones, odorless chemicals which alter the behavior of the one smelling them.   A lot of animals have anal glands, which are of the apocrine type. Ever wondered why dogs sniff each other’s rear ends? It’s a means of identification through the secretion of the anal glands! Humans have some vestigial remnants of anal glands – aren’t you glad we don’t identify ourselves this way? 0 0

Only seven more days to go in this challenge! Thanks to everyone who stopped by.  Your comments have been interesting and all the blogs I’ve visited have been instructive, amusing, interesting, informative, novel, thoughtful, colorful…my readers can add more adjectives! 0 0

I’ll bet you didn’t think rain has a smell, but I’ve always smelled something delightful with a fresh rain. There is a word, petrichor, derived from the Greek (petra, meaning rock, + ichor, meaning fluid that flows in the veins of gods), for the scent of rain on dry earth.  Now two Australian scientists, in an article for the journal Nature, have discovered that the smell comes from an oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods and absorbed by the earth and rocks.  During a rain, the oil is released into the air along with a bacterial by-product to produce the distinctive smell.  Rain also absorbs ions and thus can smell of ozone in a thunderstorm. Lots of science for the wonderful fresh odor of rain. 0 0

Thanks for stopping by! Quince jelly was a staple in both of my grandmother’s homes.  I liked its taste, sort of like pear or apple, but only lately have learned about the fruit the jelly is made from.  A quince is a highly fragrant  fruit, depending on where it is grown and the species, with the odor supposedly reminiscent of (depending on where you read): pineapple, guava, apples, vanilla and/or flowers.  I can’t distinguish between those scents myself, but apparently ancient traders claimed that one ripe quince could perfume an entire caravan. The quince is a member of the apple and pear family  and was apparently first used as a flavoring in meat stews; it can be stewed slowly in a tangine with meat and dried fruits.  It traditionally been used to make preserves, and I discovered that the word marmalade is derived from the Portuguese word mamela, meaning quince. Gotta get myself some quince jelly, maybe at the Farmer’s Market in Raleigh this year. Or maybe try to make some myself. 0 0

I love the smell of onions cooking. It makes me feel homey and strangely peaceful, not sure why. Onions figure into almost all of my main dishes, and I miss them when they’re not there.  The best smell of onion is when our grass is being mowed. Our lawn is seeded with them, so along with the wonderful odor of fresh grass, there is always a whiff of onion.  These grass-bound wild onions (Allium) are perfectly edible, too. The leaves, flowers and stalk are all fine, and they can be used any time a store-bought onion is called for.  I pick them every summer for salads and, if you’ll pardon the pun, feel like I am performing an act that goes back to our roots! 0 0

I love peaches and had never eaten a nectarine until I was in my 30s.  A nectarine is basically just a fuzzless peach, the fuzzy skin governed by a single allele of their genome. Nectarines are slightly smaller and supposedly a little more aromatic than peaches, and I’m transported by the ripe smell of both.  Any way you look at it, if you like peaches, you’ll like nectarines. Peaches came from Persia (present day Iran) and from there migrated to Europe, and were brought to North America by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. Here is a recipe originally made with peaches but equally good with nectarines. SWEET AND SPICY NECTARINE (PEACH) SUNDAE (From the Magnolia Grill, a wonderful restaurant in Durham that closed this year)  4 servings 1 lb frozen sliced peaches, thawed (can used diced fresh peaches) 1/3 cup sugar 1 ½ tbsp prepared hot pepper jelly (I use quite a bit more, since it is not spicy with this amount) 1/8th tsp ground cinnamon 1/8th tsp cayenne pepper (I used hot pepper flakes) 8 pecan shortbread cookies, crumbled Breyer’s peach or vanilla ice cream ½ cup whipped cream Bring peaches, sugar, hot pepper jelly, cinnamon and cayenne pepper to a boil over medium heat in a 2 quart saucepan. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently until peaches release their juices and are heated through. Cool to room temp. To serve, arrange 1 crumbled cookie into each serving dish, top with peach sauce, then ice cream. Sprinkle with remaining crumbled cookies and drizzle on more peach sauce. Garnish with whipped cream. 0 0