Enticing Aromas
 

What are the smells that make your mouth water?

Garlic - the smell of cooking garlic sets me off like nothing else. I love walking into an Italian restaurant.
Bread - a loaf baking in the oven is heavenly. I think bakeries use exhaust fans to attract business.
Grilled meat - I love it when my neighbors are grilling. Steak, chicken, pork, it doesn’t matter.

How about you?

Bread and grilling meats are some of my favorites!

Coffee -- I actually like the smell of dark coffee being brewed more than the taste of it.
Roasted root vegetables
Black pepper
Herbs in vinaigrette -- particularly tarragon or dill, and arugula
Tomato sauce cooked slowly
Meringue -- just as it browns. Similar to a marshmallow roasting

A smell that I have grown to dislike over time is eggs of any sort. Used to like them, now I have trouble eating them regardless of preparation

That's tough. I like the smell of almost all food cooking. Grilling or BBQing/smoking meat would probably be at the top. I also really like the smell of most fast food especially the deep fryer. Chinese stir frying in a super hot wok... I even like the smell of cabbage cooking. Only common smell I really dislike is coffee.

All of the above plus BACON!
I love the smell of coffee but hate the taste. Cinnamon is a yummy aroma too.

The three that immediately come to mind are unaju, croissants, and pandan.

Toasted dried fish, fermented tofu, toasted belacan.

All of the above (especially coffee and fresh bread smells). Additions to the list: Homemade pasta sauce cooking on the stove (both marina and bolognese), chili and pulled pork cooking in the slow cooker, caramelizing onions

Same. Love the smell of coffee and bacon. The taste, not so much.

I didn't say that I didn't like the taste of bacon....I love bacon!!
When I was a kid I loved the smell of gasoline & used to stick my head out & inhale when my dad would stop for gas.

Bacon.
Coffee (even though I do NOT drink it!) I'd buy a spray can of "fresh brewed coffee smell" for my house....:D
Bread!!! Oh yes. In the Persian Gulf in 90/91 my Cooks baked bread onboard (shore supplied ran out too quickly anyway) .What a heavenly smell to wake up to!

Fresh lemon - from the zest or the juice

That particular “tang” that emerges whilst baking something made from fermented ingredients (like a sourdough starter or two day old milk yudane/tangzhong). The smell of regular bread cooking is fine, but when it has this extra element I find it intoxicating and wind up spending half the time its baking on my haunches by the oven inhaling this airborne elixir.

Love the smell of cooked mushrooms (particularly when made with garlic) but some mushroom aromas are transcendental. Matsutake so much so that I consider it an aphrodisiac

Again - the scent of rice as it cooks is lovely, but some kinds of rice release exceptionally agreeable and mouthwatering smells into the kitchen.

The smell of capsicum peppers frying in a decent extra virgin olive oil, or sliced potatoes and onions in olive oil waiting for their egg overlord to enrobe them, make my home feel deliciously Spanish.

Using dashi (kelp kombu and bonito flake stock) along with shoyu/soy sauce, sake and mirin as an immersion bath for nabe or oden or any other innumerable dishes reasserts my house as unmistakably Japanese territory.

The heady combination of roast meat, potatoes and carrots and a ballooning Yorkshire pudding in the oven, simmering green beans and the craft of gravy making reminds me I’m in England.

And then there is the elegance and beauty of good green tea.

Freshly ground coffee
Sauteed garlic, like when making aglio e olio
Pretty much anything braised in stock and wine

Well, I've been reminded of a few. Bacon, of course. Frying peppers and onions. Ogles on the Parkway in Gatlinburg fries peppers and onions to be served on sausage in a bun in front of open windows year round. The smell can reach you from blocks away. Bakery smells are heavenly but I also love the smell of yeast working on dough. Coffee, yes but the Keurig doesn't produce enough aroma. A pot is necessary. Look forward to warmer weather when I make a pot every other day for iced coffee. The herbs from the garden: rosemary and basil especially. Roasting nuts, popcorn. The list grows.

Outside of food aromas, I love the smell of wood burning from fireplaces, only really smelling it when it gets cold here in SFLA..

#1 by a ways - sauteed onion and garlic
Bacon
Pork or beef in a smoker
Fresh baked bread

I'm sure there are more if I think about it.

Not sure if it still exists, but the old fashion small boutique fortune cookie makers. I can still recall that combination of sweet & butter aroma, and always found an excuse to stroll into the shop. To this day, if I ever see one anywhere, I'll walk in and will probably loiter for at least 30 minutes before buying a few bags.

A weird childhood memory aroma: the smell of hot asphalt combined with the smell of deep-fried goodies. Will always remind me of childhood visits to Six Flags :)

Less weirdly: barbecue (Gates BBQ in Kansas City would be the one from which all are measured), chocolate brownies, my homemade chili and cornbread.

You guys have made me sad. My very favourite non-food smell is gunpowder.

And thanks to all the COVID restrictions and lockdowns I didn’t get any of my usual fixes this past year.
Maybe I should buy a box of matches and sit outside in the cold dark damp garden and spark them off one by one for a brief transformative sniff - like a less tragic, but infinitely more pathetic, (not so) Little Match Girl :(

Clove cigarettes
Baking bread
roasted meat

I never thought of that, but it would make so much sense! Now I want to research whether that's true...

Ha, I'm glad to know I wasn't the only weird kid who enjoyed that smell! Though, I stopped taking whiffs once my parents informed me the fumes kill brain cells :-(

As far as favorite food aromas:

• Sweet potatoes or butternut squash in the oven. (I just roasted some acorn squash this morning and the kitchen smelled amazing.)
• A freshly opened bag of coffee beans.
• Ripe pear.
• My grandmother's baked macaroni and cheese. (I think she uses at least four types of cheese.) Man, I really missed that at Thanksgiving and Christmas this past year - both the food and the smell of the house while it's baking. Hopefully we can gather for the holidays in 2021.

Marzipan, although you have to get close to smell it.

Whoa! Or, you can save your book of matches for a rainy day, and when things get better (hopefully soon), I'd imagine a week or two in HK during their extended CNY would be a blast for you.

PS - Glad to see you're doing well.

Thanks!
Once I get my motherload of fixes in Spain’s Alicante for the Hogueras/Fogueres around the June Summer Solstice I’ll be sorted.
The Valencian Fallas in March (close to the Spring Equinox) is larger and more famous, but there’s an energy and chaos at our Alicantinian fire festival/firework & traca competitions that brings me to myself, nowhere in the world I’d rather be (even with the imposition of two-three weeks of sleep deprivation). Ah, pólvora...

And to get back on topic:
The festival also brings with it the smell of fried churros - gleaming churro trucks arrive and use these irresistibly scented (and hugely overpriced) carb torpedos as a way to entice cash away from drunk revellers. Alas, they usually hand over the stale cold stock and keep the aromatic freshly prepared ones out to lure more rubes.
If you want churros in Alicante, there are still a handful of old skool bars where they’ll make and serve them as breakfast, don’t buy them from the trucks! That amazing smell? It’s a trap!!!

Baking bread
Baking chocolate chip cookies
Cinnamon rolls
Bacon
Roasting meat, although the quality of the smell can vary widely

Love the smell of garlic, but not if it's to the point that I know the food would be inedible (I can't tolerate large amounts in one sitting)

I used to annually attend the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California (where much of our garlic is grown). Even driving through the town, you are enveloped in the garlic fragrance. After a day at the festival all of your clothes, your hair, your shoes, your car, etc smell of garlic. It can be heavenly.
https://gilroygarlicfestival.com/

Im sorry I never made it to the festival when I lived on NorCal. I did see a tornado in Gilroy however.

Cinnamon is a good one. More than one realtor told us to throw some in the oven and apply a little heat prior to showings.

The smell of a smoker running, don't care what is on it, it will be good
Banana bread
Definitely bacon
I really like the smell of Old Bay seasoning too

Yeah, it is quite an experience. I think I went about 5 times...so fun. You wouldn't believe how much garlic they go through. It comes out your pores for days after you get back.

Awesome, that's on my bucket list. It does sound heavenly.
What's that restaurant in the Bay area that puts garlic in every dish? I've seen it on TV. Probably a bit of a gimmick, but I would love to try it out.

They have a branch down here too....It is called The Stinking Rose. I had my birthday there once. ;)

the Stinking Rose is still in sf in north beach, very close to Chinatown.

When we lived in CA, we used to go to The Stinking Rose whenever we were in the Bay area. We stank (stunk?) for days afterwards.

Bacon
Coffee
Rosemary on any food

Black Powder or Smokeless? (Got to be BP! lol)

don’t believe I’ve ever been to a smokeless event, I get the benefits, but seems weird. Something else to complain about “how it was different when I was young” as I get more and more elderly, and then I’ll remembered that I was warned on FT!

Baking Challah
It's Friday :)

Ok, this one is gonna be unpopular, I suspect. Cigars.

Oh that's a good aroma too!

Oh, I also love the smell of cigars.

Yes and no. My father was a cigar smoker so a not-too-overpowering cigar smell I can enjoy. Some pipe tobaccos smell nice too. I cannot abide the smell of cigarettes. And I don’t need secondhand smoke of any sort. That stuff’ll kill you. So very very small amounts.