What's That Smell?

Which smells instantly take us back in time?

In this episode, we explore the world of smells, including the ones we love, the ones we dislike, and the ones that bring back powerful memories. We discuss smells from nature, food smells, nostalgic smells and even weather smells. 

We discuss how certain smells are so nostalgic, like scratch-and-sniff stickers and the lotions our mothers used when we were young. Along the way, we compare opinions, share funny stories, and confirm that yes, cold weather actually has a smell, although we can't exactly describe it. 

This episode is full of natural conversation, useful vocabulary, and plenty of opportunities to think about the smells that have shaped your own memories.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We got out of the car and my daughter looks at me. She looks at me and says, Mom, is this the smell of your childhood?

unknown 0:08

Appalled.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Horrified for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hello, Eepers. Welcome to another episode of Extra English Podcast with Misha and Larissa.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

We're two Canadian English teachers talking about life in Canada, our lives, and anything else that might interest us. And hopefully will interest you too. So join us for another conversation. In this episode, we're going to talk about smells.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Larissa suggested this episode topic, and I loved it right off the bat because it's so weird and so fun.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

And a lot of smells are associated with a feeling or an emotion. Sometimes a time, yeah. Sometimes a smell is neutral, but often I don't know, it can be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

There are a lot of good smells and a lot of bad smells. Uh-huh. This is true. And people might disagree. I think we might. We'll find out. Let's see.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Let's start with some good smells. What are some things that make you happy when you smell them?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Well, recently we talked about spring, and it's still spring here. So, I mean, those spring flowers, as we've talked about before, they just hit different. So lilacs, the smell of lilacs, which are a spring flower, but also the smell is so strong. Yeah. Like you can smell them down the block. Yeah. I love the smell of lilacs or lily of the valley. Okay. Those other spring flowers. I like a flower smell.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

I I actually find lilacs a little too strong for me. I think a lot of people probably do. Yeah. So I like it when I get a whiff of it as I'm passing. Yeah. But I have one right outside my window. Oh. And sometimes it's a little much. They're finished now. That's right. Like my neighbor brings lilacs into her house. She cuts them and brings them in.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah. I I don't do it. It's it's too strong. It's too much. I get it. They're very, it's a lot. And it's perfumey, we would call that smell. Not a lot of people like a perfumey smell. Not a lot of people like that. Some people don't.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah. It's just, it's just strong. But it is it is wonderful. What are some good smells for you? I love the smell of freshly mown grass. I love it. So this is how I thought of this topic. I was walking the other day past a patch of grass that had just been cut and it hit me, and I just smile. Like I just it doesn't have a specific memory. It's just the feeling of summer and freshness. I really, I really like the smell of cut grass.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Interesting. That one doesn't really I don't dislike it, but it doesn't appeal to me.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

What about trees like a pine tree or a um like a cedar? Or the wood of a cedar tree. I have some patio furniture I made out of cedar trees. Does it still smell? It I mean the smell fades with every passing month or year, but you can usually, if you scratch it a little, get a bit of a smell again. I mean, cedar's famous for its smell. It often lasts. Yeah, I love that kind of smell. I think also I grew up a lot around a lot of woodworking, and my brother still is a woodworker. So that those sawdust smells, the smell of wood being cut, sometimes that little bit of yeah, I like those smells.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

My neighbors have just put down mulch in their garden. So it's like you take a tree and you cut it really small, and then we can put it on our gardens to keep the moisture in.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah. And decoration. It looks nice.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah. Um, but when the wind blows in just the right way, that smell comes into my yard. And yeah, it's it's delicious. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Can the smell be delicious? I think you could call that one delicious. All right. You don't want to eat it though. I do not. But it's good. Uh speaking of natural smells, yeah. One that we smell quite a bit around here. I mean, when we go out outside of the city, is manure.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Would you call manure a good smell? Manure is cow poop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Not just cows. Animal poop. Uh for me, I kind of like that smell. Huh. And if I'm driving in the car with my dad, especially when I was younger, he would often roll down the window if there was a manure smell so he could breathe. Because my dad was a farmer for most of my childhood. So it's a it's a good memories associated with that smell. Hard work. I would like to clarify though, cow manure smells to me nice. Okay. Chicken manure. Oh. Hard pass. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

I don't know that I've smelled chicken manure and realized it.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

If we're ever driving somewhere where we smell it, I'll point it out. It's a different smell and it's not good.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Cow manure is there's a lot of cow manure. You can smell it.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

And people here spread it on their fields. So you often will go by a field when you're driving through the countryside here and smell cow manure.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

So last uh early spring, winter, maybe it was late fall. I don't know. It was during the ringette season. My daughter plays ringette, and we went um to a small town for an out-of-town game. And it was a town actually where my my family lived. I had never lived there. So after I moved out, my parents and younger siblings moved to this small farm town. So we were going there to play a game. We got out of the car, and my daughter looks at me. She's like, she smells manure. Like they they must have been spreading it on the fields. She looks at me and says, Mom, is this the smell of your childhood?

unknown 5:52

Appalled.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Horrified for you.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

And I was like, I actually didn't ever live here. So no, but it's a good smell. I like that the smell exists because it means the farmers are doing their thing, the crops are gonna be good. But yeah, she was not a fan. Like it.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

That's pretty cute. This is a kid who didn't grow up on a farm.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

No, she's a city girl. Absolutely. Funny. We could sometimes smell our city, has um has a bakery. Our my neighborhood has a bakery, and I can sometimes smell the baking of bread. That's a good smell. That's a very good smell.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, baking bread is such a good smell. They make cookies there too, I think. Oh, don't they? Probably. Yeah, I think so. Okay, so let's let's talk more about food. Food smells, I mean, smell categories, as far as smell categories go, this has got to be one of the top ones. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Is there a food that when you smell it, it feels comforting or um wonderful?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

I mean, we've talked before about I didn't grow up with a lot of my mom was a very experimental cook, so she cooked a lot of different things. But also generally Canadian food or the European food that our food probably comes from, a lot of it doesn't have super strong smells. Yeah, it's true. Right? Yeah. I mean, apple crisp in the oven, maybe that's a smell I would remember.

unknown 7:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

I don't know. What if it's drinking apple? Absolutely. Pumpkin. Yeah. A lot of fall. I think of um kitchen smells more related to the fall season. Cinnamon. Cinnamon, cloves, that kind of pumpkin y apple-y. Um yeah, that is. And I also like Thanksgiving dinner. Uh if I'm going to like my parents' house for dinner, I walk in, the turkey has been cooking all day. The whole house smells like it. That's a distinct smell. But we don't use a lot of spices. No. Really. And so we don't have the same aromas that you might in and many other places.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah, many. Our food's boring. Our food is boring. But bread smells are boring. Baking, actually, my mom always baked fresh bread. So that would be a smell that I grew up smelling. That's comforting. For sure. That's a good one. Or we my mom loved garlic. She would serve us when we would go on vacation, so we weren't going to be around people. Just sliced garlic sandwiches. Oh. Toasted bread with butter, sliced tomatoes, and sliced raw garlic. Raw garlic. Wow. So I feel like that garlic smell is also, I like that smell. Wow. And did you like the taste of that too? Yeah, we liked it. Yeah. I don't, I haven't done that in years. I don't know if I would like it now. You need to try. I know I should. How do we slice this?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Anyway, yeah. I love garlic, but I prefer roasted. It's milder. Yes. This is the story of me, I think. I like I like lilacs from afar.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

She likes her garlic roasted. Likes her manure also at a distance. That one you might have some company on. Yeah, I think I'm not unusual in that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

This is not a food, but whenever I smell beer, I have a very distinct memory of being at a baseball game.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Oh, I yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Not just any baseball game. Probably the first time I went to see a national baseball game was the Toronto Blue Jays. And people, you can buy hot dogs and snacks and beer. And so someone was walking by with these beers, and I hadn't, my family didn't drink beer. And so this was a new smell for me. And I like the smell.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

I don't like the taste of beer, but I like the smell of beer.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, I don't mind the smell.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

And so that still brings me back to that memory. Mm-hmm. That's nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I think smells really are attached to memories so strongly. They can be. Yeah. Yeah, certain ones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Do you have a strong smell memory?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah. When I was younger, my mom used to put this lotion called Nivea on her face, is a popular cream brand here. Okay. She would put it on every night. So when she would read me a story or I'd kiss her goodnight, I always had that smell. And actually, I haven't smelled it in years now that I think about it because she doesn't use it anymore. Okay. Well, now she makes her own. Now she makes her own, and it's much healthier. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's a really strong, I just have strong memories.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Like comforting, cozy kind of. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

So my mom also used a cream um called Noxema.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

And she used it on her hands. I don't know that it was meant to be used as a cream. I thought I think it's more of a like a cleansing lotion.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Um, but she used it as a moisturizer cream on her hand, and it has a very strong smell.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

I haven't smelled it for years. I don't even know if they're still a company. And if they are, have they changed the smell? Because it was very pungent.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

We we need to go to a pharmacy and smell the Nivea and the Noxima. Yeah. Just for the style. Just to go. Yeah. Yeah. There it is. Yeah, interesting. I don't know. I actually don't know if Nivea makes the same thing anymore or if it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

I mean, you would think after years and years they would change up a little. But maybe they want to keep it consistent for the nostalgia.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Other smells when I was a kid that I liked were things that I can't imagine smelling now and or wanting to smell now. Things like markers.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Like the like wet pens, those markers. I love the smell of those. When we would go fill up the car with gasoline, I liked the smell of that. How could I? It's terrible. It's a terrible smell. Yeah, I don't like that. It's you don't like it now. No. No, absolutely. It's artificial, it's chemical. And I wonder if there's something about children versus adults because my kids like the smell of tires.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

When we walk into Costco, they sell tires before you walk into the store and they like that smell. That is interesting. Which I don't. And I'm hoping they grow out of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I mean, evidence seems to suggest that they might. Seems to the evidence being you. I'm the evidence. Yeah, interesting. I don't know what it would be. Yeah, but a lot of kids like the smell of markers. It's weird.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

They actually made scented markers for a while.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I loved those, actually.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

I think I hope they've stopped because it's not it's not good to smell the chemicals. We shouldn't be encouraging kids to smell to smell that stuff. So I hope they've stopped.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

I don't know. I'm curious. They also, when I was a kid, I had a lot of scratch and sniff stickers. Yes. Scratch and sniff. This was a big thing. You scratch it with a fingernail and the smell would come. Scratch and sniff. It was also very artificial. But I haven't seen those in no. I mean, we have a lot of stickers in my house right now, and none of them are scratch and sniff. So they must not.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

I don't think I think we've learned not to give children artificial scents.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Like don't tell kids to sniff chemicals. Yeah, we have to. That's what we've learned. Yeah, I wonder. You know another thing that has smells attached. Tell me. The weather. It does. Yeah. Different, different types of weather.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yes. I love the smell of rain. I love it. Um, especially in the last 10 years since I came back from living in Qatar. Because we didn't have rain there. Okay, occasionally, but but rain on desert smells different than rain on grass, rain on dirt. Um, there's something about that smell. It's it's earthy and I just love it.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah. It's a cleansing kind of smell.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

It smells yeah, fresh and new. And I mean it does. The rain washes things and it rehydrates the earth, and and that smell is part of the rejuvenation.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah. Um, you know, another type of weather that you can smell is the cold.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

You can smell the cold.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yes. And people who don't live in a really cold place like us might not know that. Yeah because heat is not the same. I've lived in really hot places. Okay. You can smell sweat. Yeah, like your body starts to smell it. Sometimes sometimes. But but the cold itself, and I don't know what makes it. No, no idea. But if we were inside in the winter and someone came in from outside, you'd be able to smell on them, on their clothing, the cold. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

They would smell cold. They would smell cold. And can you describe it? I can't describe that smell.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Because even I thought, is it like the snow, you know, the rain, the precipitation, but they wouldn't have snow on them necessarily. It's not a damp smell. It's fresh. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

It's unique.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Interesting. There is a smell. Cold has a smell.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

You'll have to believe us if you've never been here, or next time it's winter, smell someone.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Just be subtle about it. Don't tell them we told you to do it. No, no, no. Also, I mean, uh, we have lived warm places, both of us, but maybe maybe you disagree with us about heat not having a smell.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Maybe heat does have a smell and we just haven't noticed it.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Maybe as Canadians, we're not able to smell it.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Like how dogs can hear sounds that humans can't. Or the dogs here. Our noses don't work with that register. At the beginning, Misha, you talked about the smells of spring, like the flowers and and the freshness. But fall also has a smell. Yeah. And it's the smell of decomposition. The smell of leaves rotting, turning back into dirt. And that is also a beautiful smell.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Very earthy. Related, it's similar to rain, but yeah, it has a bit of an earthy. But maybe deeper. Yeah. If smells can be deeper. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

A strong, no, not stronger. That's not what you mean by deeper.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

If it was a color, it would be a darker color.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Further in the earth. Smells are very hard to describe. Also, it's really hard for me, actually, as you're describing that, to detach the smell from the sound of leaves. Dried, crunching leaves under the biggest. I love that sound. It's such a nice sound.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

I also love the sound of rain.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, rain is a love. I prefer the sound of rain over the smell. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Smells. Smells. Well, I'm pleased to say, Misha, I don't smell anything here. Negative or positive.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Oh, I was hoping sometimes people smell my mom's soap smells. Oh. Because I have her soap various places. Oh, I don't. No. Sorry. But do you know what though? Don't you find there's certain people you know whose home and their clothing has a smell? Yes. Like I can think of one of my aunts. I really remember the smell of her house. Yes.

unknown 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

But what makes that the case? And then I wonder after I visit a place like that. Yeah. What does my home smell like? Yeah, what is smell?

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Because I can't smell it. No, you're in your home. Interesting. Yeah. But you're in my home right now. But you've been here a while. Uh the the desensitized note. Who knows? Who knows? I'm curious. Next time I'm going to try. I'm going to like bake something. I'm going to spray something.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

I think your smells are at a register that my nose can't smell.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

You're not Misha enough for these smells. I don't know what your home smells like, actually. I haven't been there in a while. I'm going to come over next time I go. I'm happy that you don't have a a smell attached to it. I mean, no smell or neutral is probably a little bit what you're aiming for with the home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I want it to smell like nothing.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Unless you always are baking chocolate chip cookies or something. Wow. That would be amazing. Yeah. Anyway, as always, we'd love to hear from you. Yes. So if there are smells that make you feel nostalgic, make you remember childhood, or if you want to argue with us about whether a smell is good or bad, weigh in on the manure debate, let us know. Either way, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Yeah. Thanks for listening to another episode.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

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