Do you ever taste or smell something that evokes an old memory you didn’t know you had, or just stirs an emotion without warning?  It happens to me every so often.  I may be walking along somewhere and there is a subtle smell which as soon as I detect it takes me back – often I don’t know where it takes me back to, just a rough point in my life – but I know I remember it.

A while back I was in a shop and smelt a sweet smell – it gave me a warm feeling.  I’m sure it reminded me a sweet from a certain period of my childhood but I couldn’t tell you what or why I remembered it.

It works the other way though.  There were a few dishes from my primary school dinners that I absolutely hated.  Cheesy scotch eggs (I feel rough just thinking about them) and stuffing with some obscure herb in it that used to make me feel distinctly ill.  Just the other day I had something that must have had the same herby ingredient I took an aversion to all that time ago – the food wasn’t an unpleasant taste to me now, but the emotional memory it triggered was surprisingly strong so I struggled to enjoy it.

These unexpected feelings don’t happen that often, but when they do they remind me that taste and smell are powerfully linked to memory and emotion.  Perhaps that why we take comfort in certain food drinks.  And for me, that’s why I’m less than keen on aniseed, after several aniseed related drink experiences – but that’s another story…