Smell

The sense of smell is one of our stronger senses, the average human can recognize nearly 10,000 different smells and odors. Yet it lacks key adjectives to describe what we perceive as smell. I have been taking a Professional Food Writing Class and I'm learning all about food and the senses we use to describe it. Smell is harder to describe than you would think, sit down and try to describe the smell of something. Surprisingly quite difficult right?

I bring up smell because we remember and recognize so many different smells and New York is definitely a city of smell (India also comes to mind). It is crazy how you can walk out the door and be overcome by a familiar odor, good or bad. I would try to describe the smells of New York but given the lack of adjectives I wouldn't give it justice. Maybe I can pull from the memory of 10,000 smells that we all recognize; think roasting nuts, fresh breads and bakery's, dog poo, rain, and asian food. Depending on the day and what part of New York you are in the smells are different, yet somehow familiar.