The smell of the sea. The taste of a simple ice cream. The carnival atmosphere of Brighton Palace Pier. Chemoreception pleasure in a nutshell.😎

What is the essence of being alive? What is the one thing that differentiates a living thing to a non-living thing? Life on earth has been living for a very long time. 3 billion years give or take. We lack the mental capacity to process this amount of time. Anything longer than a year becomes abstract in the brain. For some they can’t think beyond next week. Nonetheless, it’s worth thinking about it. If the age of the universe is believed to be 13.8 billion years, this means life has endured for 20% of the universe lifespan. How remarkable! Life has faced multiple great extinction events, yet it is still kicking. Immortality is not an elixir nor is it a soul. It is already within us, within our cells. Life is immortal. This is because to live is to be social. Wait, what? When you hear the word ‘social’, the first thing that comes to your mind is probably your family, your friends, your colleagues, your community etc. Or you are probably thinking of the most anti-social person you know. Maybe that person is you. Hey, I am not judging. No one would dispute the fact that humans are the most social animals on the planet. Being social is what makes us human, right? Not exactly. Being social is what makes us not dead.

http://www.ted.com In his lab, Martin Hanczyc makes "protocells," experimental blobs of chemicals that behave like living cells. His work demonstrates how life might have first occurred on Earth ... and perhaps elsewhere too. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

3 billion years ago, proto life started forming on the hydrothermal vents in the deep volatile oceans of the primordial earth. A rare accident. No light penetrated to these depths and so the sun had little influence in kickstarting life. Multiple proto enzyme particles with just a few molecules in length emerged at the same time. These organic molecules were probably funny looking oily chemicals that clumped together and dissolved just as quickly. Within this chaos, one (or multiple) proto enzyme(s) started to send a social message that another proto enzyme recognized. This message was chemical in nature which managed to tunnel into the primitive bubble of the oily enzyme. A rarer accident in the span of millions of years. As a result, these organic molecules started working together as a network and replicated for the first time. Suddenly, they were… alive. This was the spark of life and its immortality. The moment they were alive, the gear of evolution commenced that perpetuated the state of being alive. When I see the concept of being social on that chemical level, it is obvious that all living things are social. Protein network in a cell is obviously a social network. Soil bacterial network is a social network. Neuron network of the brain is a social network. Immune system is a social network. The human body itself is one giant social network. The need to be social precedes the need to survive, not the other way around. If we encounter an alien from other places in the universe, I have no doubt in my mind that they are social, and they communicate chemically. If we manage to create a true AI, it would be inherently social, and it would imitate the chemical communication network of a cell.

We have another word for this chemical communication. It’s called smell. The early proto life is doing precursor smelling of each other and of energy rich particles a.k.a food. In other words, the ability to sense chemicals is the first sense that is ever developed. It probably is the origin of life. Chemicals strengthen social bonds right down to the protein.

It has been 3 billion years since then and here comes humans. It is arrogant to assume that the entire evolution leads up to us. We are just another accident that has evolved to survive on the African plains. That said, our chemoreception is special among the animals. Anyone who has a pet can testify that their cute doggies can smell things from very far away. It’s true that other animals have us beat in the department of smell sensitivity, but humans are superior in recognizing an enormous variety of smells. It is an old claim that we can recognize over 10,000 smells which I have to admit is pitiful. If this is the case, our culinary instincts would have never surfaced. I don’t know where this number comes from. There is no scientific basis behind it. In fact, we can smell far more chemicals than previously believed up to a trillion smells. Not only that, smells are more connected to emotion and memory formation in humans. Is it because of this ability that we are able to conquer the world not soon after leaving Africa? We adapt to smells in a new environment remarkably quickly to settle in a new niche. After a few centuries, the knowledge of the local environment in terms of plant life, game territories and smell memories are packaged into mythical stories which are then easily passed down to the next generation.

Compared to other senses, olfaction is unique in two ways in the human brain. Firstly, it doesn’t require the peripheral nervous system to relay the smell information. The smell receptors are directly connected to the limbic system. As you know, the deeper emotional part of the brain (the limbic system) is older than the top parts (cerebral cortex). It’s as if the ancient brain itself is smelling the world. Secondly, the smell information doesn’t go through the thalamus for filtered processing. For other senses, thalamus highway is required to consciously perceive it in the cerebral cortex. Instead, olfaction data is delivered directly to the medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex. As a result of this, conscious perception of smells is rather slow. If you are not paying attention, you may be unaware of faint smells in the environment, but they are influencing your general feeling of the place subconsciously. On the other hand, the emotional intensity of smells is immediate. Let’s consider a coffee smell. It is the most ubiquitous smell in a modern society. You probably have attached a lot of memories to it. However, the coffee aroma itself consists of thousands of molecules that bombard the receptors in the nose. Then the olfactory bulb recognizes it as a single odour object. What is going on here? Odour objects are learned through experience and the immediate context. They are resistant to background interference, intensity fluctuation and partial degradation. We recognize multiple odour objects at once from millions of molecules. This is incredible. It’s like recognizing a word from a different combination of letters.

Ice coffee in Shoreditch Grind, Old Street station, London. I go there often for client meetings.

What I am trying to say is that, chemoreception is like a very ancient language used by all living entities to communicate with each other. Plants are masters of this language more than any other multicellular lifeform because they actively produce smells. They speak the language of smells while animals can only listen to it. Humans are the only known animal that manufacture smells according to their needs much like the plants. Unlike the natural smell of a rose, the artificial concoction is limited in its complexity. When a plant grows from a seedling to a mature tree, it is aware of the neighbours and their chemical profiles. It will produce a unique set of molecules in response to other plants around it. A flower from the same species may not produce exactly the same aroma when grown in different neighbourhoods. In addition, plants produce smells to manipulate the local insects to lure them for reproductive purposes or to defend against predators. Funny enough, even we humans are manipulated by the plant scents since the emotional part of the brain is old. If it works on the insects, it works on us too albeit at lower intensity. Biochemistry continuity is the norm in the animal kingdom. We cannot resist the smells of a beautiful flower such as rose, lilac, lilies, jasmine, vanilla orchid and sunflower. It is not that we evolved to like these flowers. But rather it is the plant evolution that has seized the pleasure centre of the brain.

I took this pic in front of my house. We planted sunflowers and they bloomed.

The second system that is evolved to sense chemicals is taste. The more I study about taste, the more I am convinced that the distinction between taste and smell is just arbitrary. Aristotle is the first recorded person to make this distinction and I don’t think he has neuroscience evidence when he articulates this. When you taste something delicious like steak, most of what you are tasting is actually smell. In humans there are two pathways of smelling, orthonasal smelling which means smelling through the nose, and retronasal smelling which means smelling through the mouth. Somehow the brain confuses retronasal smelling as part of the taste system because it is attributing to the mouth itself. Smelling through the nose feels qualitatively different from smelling while the food is in the mouth. That said, taste buds do contribute significantly to the overall flavour sensation. There is strong evidence for 5 basic tastes: salt, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. Unlike smell which the brain perceives a single odour object from thousands of molecules, each taste is distinct due to a specific chemical reaction. For example, sourness only senses the acidity while bitterness senses alkalinity. Some researchers are convinced that fatty acids, metallics, calcium and starch can also be categorized as taste. We still don’t fully understand how the whole taste system works. It is a myth that there are only taste buds on the tongue. Amazingly, taste buds are all over the mouth: the tongue, on the roof of the mouth, at the back of the throat and even in the stomach. When the stomach detects large number of poisonous compounds through these taste receptors, it slows down digestion to make sure that potential toxic chemicals will not be absorbed in the bloodstream immediately. The digestion system is terrified of them because humans must have faced serious poisoning events in its evolutionary history. It turns out taste buds are more versatile than just tasting food.

The third system of chemoreception that most people aren’t aware of is Chemesthesis. Notice the difference in spelling and sound between the two words: Che-mo-re-cep-tion; Che-mes-the-sis. Chemesthesis is conveyed via the trigeminal nerves that are embedded in the face and in the mouth. The mucous membranes are especially packed with these nerves. They detect touch, temperature and pain during biting, chewing and moving the food around the mouth. I will not go into detail regarding the trigeminal system because it is way beyond an average person level of understanding. And it is boring to be frank. I will instead give you an alternative perspective, so you can picture how it is different to both taste and smell and also how they are interconnected.

Have you heard of this Chinese saying? “Sichuan does not fear spiciness. Hunan does not fear spicy food. Guizhou fears eating food that isn’t spicy.” Sichuan, Hunan and Guizhou are southern provinces in China which have specialized in developing spicy cuisines for centuries. From their accumulated knowledge, they have unintentionally discovered the power of Chemesthesis in enhancing flavour to new heights. The spiciness in Chinese cuisine rests on two pillars: red chilli peppers (la wei) and Sichuan flower peppers (ma wei). The two combined are called Ma-La-Wei ratio. The Chinese chefs insist that there is a difference between ‘dry hot’ and ‘wet hot’ spiciness. This division makes sense from a Chemesthesis perspective. They activate different touch and thermoception receptors. The Sichuan peppers produce a numbing dry effect on the tongue with a satisfying lingering aftertaste. This tingling effect is similar to carbonated drinks or a mild electric current. Sichuan food is about a variety of flavours: spicy, flowery, salty, sour, sweet, bitter, smoky, etc. Frequently all of those flavours are combined in one dish. The result is a cuisine with breath-taking complexity, hitting all the sense receptors in the entire digestive system. You can tell a bad Sichuan restaurant from a good one because it hits one note at a time while a good Sichuan dish is more akin to a symphony. Symphonic spicy food produce adrenaline and beta-endorphins in the brain due to the burning pain. In other words, it is addictive. Next time you ‘taste’ pungency from spicy food, coolness from mint, sharp dry mouthfeel from tea, the tingling sensation from soda drinks and creaminess from yogurt, always remember that it is not taste. But Chemesthesis.

Ok we are now ready to consider the true purpose of this article. How can we induce pleasure using the chemical senses? Here is my chemoreception pleasure model. Inside the pentagon are the three chemical senses as I have explained above. The smell is the most influential of the three which is why its circle is much bigger. Taste and Chemesthesis are the ears. If you think of smell as the planet Mars, taste and chemesthesis would be the two moons that orbit it (Phobos and Deimos). The hat of expectation is the cause of all chemical pleasure because of its unique perception pathway in the brain without requiring the thalamus highway. Depending on the cultural background, past experience and immediate surroundings, the context of the chemical information determines its pleasure value. The pentagon is the outgrowth of the hat that surrounds the senses. Amplification, Morality, Profiling, Recollection and Flavour are 5 basic elements of chemoreception pleasure. I will explain each one of them in the following passages. Let’s go!

Amplification

You have been in a severe car accident. You would lose either your vision or your smell. Which one would you choose? Think very carefully. If you are like most people you would choose to lose smell since it is not that important in your everyday life. Losing vision seems like a huge lost. You will forever live in darkness and that seems terrifying. You can no longer see your loved ones or watch your favourite movie. No doubt, it will be difficult for you to navigate in life. Simply crossing a road would be a challenge of life and death. The difference between losing sight and losing smell is the level of shock a person experiences in the beginning. Losing sight is a huge shock to day to day life. Given enough time, you will get through this difficult episode and regain control of your routines. The modern society is somewhat accommodating for a blind person. The pedestrian crossings at least in London are installed with ringing sounds that indicate when it is safe to cross. But you know what? Knowing all that, losing smell is far worse.

Losing smell is a kind of hell that tricks you into believing that you got a good deal. When a person wakes up from a car accident that takes away their sense of smell, they don’t notice that they have lost it. Sometimes even doctors don’t notice it. First you would be kinda happy. You no longer smell bad things like excrements, dust, sweat, engine oil etc. (Yeah yeah ok, you love engine oil smell. But I don’t.) Then you notice something. You can’t taste food anymore. Everything feels bland and cardboard-like. Your love of pizza is gone. Coffee just taste bitter, that’s it. When you visit your mother, the smell you remember from childhood, the smell that enveloped the helpless baby you, is gone. You never realize that the love for your mother and the memories associated with her are inextricably tied to her smell. Until now. Slowly over months and years, your quality of life worsens. Your ability to enjoy basic pleasures starts to fade. Everything worth living in this life becomes irrelevant to your existence. What is the end point for such a life? Let’s just say, it’s not pretty. If not treated early, individuals with anosmia are often hit with severe depression. Loss of smell robs the will to live just as Dementors feed on the joyful feelings of the prisoners of Azkaban rendering them in a vegetative state.

In contrast to that harrowing condition, having the sense of smell amplifies all of the common pleasures in life. Always working in the background. For example, kissing a lover’s neck is sexy. But kissing a lover’s neck that smells spectacular is erotic. I feel confident wearing my favourite jacket. But I feel confident and unstoppable wearing my favourite jacket that is scented with my favourite perfume. Taking a bath feels amazing. But taking a bath with the smell of rose petals feels heavenly. You get the idea. I am sure you can come up with more examples from your own experience. Chemoreception gives a detailed emotional texture to everything you can feel and touch. Another way to amplify the pleasure is to generate an aura of good smells around the body. Throughout history, humans have invented many fashion accessories that channel the essence of smells. In the 1700s, perfumed fans that are imported from Asia are trendy items for the rich and powerful women in the West. When they fan themselves, the perfume in the air surrounds them almost like a cocoon. Any male suitors approaching them can sense their presence from far away. In the Victorian Era, men carry perfumed handkerchiefs in case a beautiful woman would need it. When she smells his handkerchief, feelings of attraction can be activated in the brain. Religious leaders are aware of this amplification characteristic since ancient times. Even today, temples, mosques, synagogues and churches all around the world burn incense to fill the holy environment with good smells not only to make the place feel inviting but also to communicate with unseen entities. People believe good smells can summon good spirits, angels or saints. Some literally believe smell themselves are spirits. Because of its ethereal nature, smell has always provided a direct path to the heart.

Valence

It was a Friday. It’s like every other Friday. To expect it to be a bloody day would be paranoid. But it happened. On November 13th, a Friday, four gunmen stormed into the Bataclan theatre in Paris where 1500 people were enjoying the performance of Eagles of Death Metal band. Using their automatic rifles, they shot through the crowd, killing some instantly. Panic ensued. The audience was collapsing on top of one another not just from being shot but also from the stampede. The vivid account of the survivors who experienced hell on Earth, repeatedly mentioned the smell of blood and gunpowder. Similarly, in the aftermath of 9/11, New Yorkers who were in the city at the time of the destruction are still haunted by the smell of burned concrete. Whenever they smell it again, the traumatic memories return in full force. Uncontrollable emotions burst forth followed by tears. The brain automatically attaches valence and emotion to chemical sensory data. This is an important survival tactic that has evolved early in the animal evolution. Emotion adds a motivating force around a specific smell object that is significant to past experience.

In psychology, valence means something is intrinsically good or bad. Intrinsically good is attractive. Intrinsically bad is aversive. In other words, it is a judgment. Smell, taste and chemesthesis always carry a judgment in the mind. This is subconscious learning. You cannot easily will yourself to like a certain smell or taste that you already dislike. Great perfume designers however must become indifferent to the valence of smells. It is counter-productive to dislike certain smells when making a perfume. It’s like disliking the colour green as a painter. A lot of restraint and willpower is required to treat each scent as a tool to be combined with intention. For example, base notes often smell awful because of their foul origins. Ambergris is a popular base note ingredient that is very expensive. It is essentially whale poo that is washed ashore on the beach. When combined with more pleasant middle notes and top notes, ambergris based perfume produces a complex organic smell that is irresistible. It also lasts for a long time on the skin. Base notes determine the character of a perfume. They provide depth that amplifies the other notes. That’s why cheap perfumes smell cheap because they don’t contain base notes. They lack character. In order to fathom its depths, one must look beyond its unpleasantness to imagine a harmonious whole of the entire fragrance. Years of training is not unusual for a competent perfumer to recognize this simple fact.

My favourite cologne

*Base notes:* Nutmeg, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Leather, Incense And Myrrh
*Heart notes:* Geranium And Coffee Absolute
*Head notes:* Bergamot, Mandarin, Lavender And Sage
The balance between these diverse notes is mind-boggling. It elevates my ego to the next level.

Valence of smells even enter the linguistic expressions of moral failings. “This government is rotten, there is no saving it.” “Something fishy is going on among the executives in this company.” “I feel bitter from unfair marking of my final test.” These expressions make use of smell and taste metaphors to signify corruption. Corruption is a unique phenomenon among humans that break established social contracts. When an athlete cheats and the referee doesn’t punish his actions, the viewers can infer that the athlete must have paid the referee or worse threatens him to keep it silent. If the sport organization doesn’t punish the referee nor the athlete, then we can feel the corruption runs deep all the way to the top. It may not be true but the feeling is significant. In the same way, a coal mining company starts destroying the natural landscape without consulting the local inhabitants while the politician in charge of the sector turns a blind eye. Instead of fulfilling his responsibility to the local community to which he has sworn to serve, he chooses to go in bed with the mining company which has given him plenty of monetary donations. We conduct in different transactions all the time: business, personal, romantic, bureaucratic, politic etc. Most of the time, we keep them separate for a good reason. When one contaminates the other to influence the desired results, it is not only cheating but also vile corruption. Each sphere of social transaction holds a suite of values that shouldn’t be mixed. When they do, humans use smell metaphors to express what they are feeling: moral disgust.

The insula cortex (gyri of insula) is a part of the limbic system that process complex emotional experiences especially disgust. Out of all the basic emotions, disgust is learned, not innate. Young children learn to feel disgust from their culture. Consider the smell of disease. Cultures all over the world have faced diseases that are unique to the geography and climate. Children in turn learn to feel disgust by the diseases that they are familiar with. Interestingly, the insula is activated when we attribute valence to smells. So, the moment we sense corruption in a social transaction, we feel disgust on a visceral level in the deep part of the brain. Our stomach feels sick from the revelation. And then this feeling is sent to the top parts to invent a narrative account of what is going on. In other words, moral disgust is a bottom up activity in the brain. All social animals possess the capability to feel unfairness. Corruption is a more human version of that.

On the other hand, those with exceptional moral character are believed to have had heavenly smells. In Catholic Christian mythology, saints are accompanied by distinctive good smells that reflect their heroic deeds. It’s called the odour of sanctity. Pleasant smells have a halo effect. What I mean by that is, they carry a chain of positive characteristics around it. People who smell good are perceived to be moral, pure, patient, trustworthy, high status, rich and handsome. They almost become divine beings in the mind of the smeller. No longer from this world but somewhere beyond. Nowadays, wearing different perfumes for different occasions is a common habit but competition is fierce. For women who can afford it, donning a unique scent that perfectly matches her skin, personality, attractiveness and power is the best strategy to open doors in the heart of men. And vice versa.

Profiling

Blade Runner 2049 Scene Director: Denis Villeneuve Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Jared Leto, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright

Around the midpoint of the Blade Runner film, Joi, the AI companion was sad that she couldn’t be ‘real’ for the main character, K. So, she encouraged him to hire one of the prostitutes to come home. The prostitute was aware that K had a Joi in his home because she commented in the earlier scene that he preferred the virtual over the real girls. Joi then walked on top of the prostitute and started to sync her movements. I felt eerie during this process. The uncanny valley was off the charts. K was stunned as well. A few moments later, the syncing was complete. K could barely see the prostitute underneath. The only ‘person’ he cared about now felt oddly real. Even when they were making out, he was caressing her with affection. Joi and K were both closing their eyes during the kiss. However, the prostitute eyes were open. She too was a little surprised of his gentle touch, but she was an outsider in this intimacy. Right now, the only thing on K’s mind was that he wanted to make love with Joi. The music of the scene elevated it to a whole new level of awe, erotic and tragic all at the same time. I didn’t expect this love scene would be the most beautiful I have ever seen in a cinema. It was sad enough that K required a surrogate woman to make love to his AI partner. It was more heart-wrenching that he could only smell the prostitute, not Joi. Joi didn’t have a smell profile. Because of this I was convinced again that Joi was not real. She was simply a product designed by Wallace Corporation to say exactly what K wanted to hear. Show exactly what K wanted to see. She could be customized to suit the customer’s needs and desires. But only in looks and voice. Unlike holograms and virtual AIs, real human beings have a smell profile. Based on genetics, gender, diet and lifestyle, this smell remains unique. It is the chemical imprint of a person’s life. I doubt replicating it will ever be possible. For genuine attraction to take place between two people, smell profile is very important. The nose more often than not decides the perfect match to share a life with. This is what it means to be ‘real’.

Odor signatures and kin recognition

Wait! This got me thinking. If smell profiling is significant in sexual attraction, what about in cases where attraction is undesirable? Namely among first degree relatives. I remember the white t-shirt party in university freshers’ week. It was a fun introduction event where everyone wore white t-shirts and they wrote witty remarks on them with a marker pen. One of my flat-mates was trying to be funny and wrote on his friend’s shirt that he was into incest and he was looking for family members. I was laughing my ass off when I saw it but was also a little disturbed. Maybe I laughed because it was disturbing. Why is that? Evolutionary psychologists have been wondering about this exact question. Incest aversion develops naturally between children, and between children and parents. Curiously, adopted children are not exceptions to the rule. So it’s not just genetics. This is not counting exceptional cases such as Ancient Egypt pharaohs fondness for marrying their siblings to concentrate the godly royal blood which resulted in accumulating genetic diseases after a few generations. They did that because they didn’t want to share their power with outsiders. Not just Egypt, the Inca kings married their sisters for similar reasons with similar consequences. Even European monarchs in the middle ages were brushing against inbreeding due to marrying cousins between royal households. It seemed a life of absolute power and luxury outweighed the cost of disease until it caught up to their descendants. Don’t forget. These remarkable incestuous unions were extreme cultural and political forces that were overriding robust biological defences against incest.

As I was saying, the earlier a child sees that another baby is nursed by his mother, he will develop aversion to attraction later in life. He thinks that the baby is likely to be a sibling. This is high level rational thinking that I am convinced young children aren’t capable of. Incest activates the emotion disgust. Not just moral disgust, but physical cringe. On the contrary, disgust is suppressed in sexual attraction. There has to be a more concrete mechanism that administers this incest disgust. Knowing what I know now, it is the smell profile that blocks incest initially. Chemoreception doesn’t require high level thinking. Smell and taste investigation is very natural for babies. They put anything they can grasp into their mouths to map the chemical properties of the environment. This includes smelling family members. Parents are also involved in smell-profiling their babies even the adopted ones. A mother knows which baby is hers without looking. Just the smell of her baby is sufficient. The baby smell activates warm pleasurable feelings inside probably due to the release of oxytocin in the bloodstream. Adopted children are welcomed into the family with no problem. The younger the better so there is more time for smell familiarity to develop. The same goes with sibling smells.

In general, the smell of your mother, your father, your sibling, your child reduce stress. When you go back to your family home, you immediately feel comfortable because of the smell profile sensed by your subconscious. Actually, smell profiling goes beyond that. Every city has a smell profile. Every interior space has a smell profile. Every garden has a smell profile. And so on. How you feel in these environments determines your well-being and the memories you recollect.

Recollection

A typical durian street-shop in Yangon, Myanmar

Durian, the spiky angry looking fruit is well regarded as the smelliest fruit on the planet. In South East Asian countries such as Thailand, posters of warning against carrying durian in public transports and hotels are everywhere. Smells are persistent in the environment. It leaves a lingering presence long after the source is gone. In layman terms, smells are sticky. This is why Bloodhounds can sniff out scent trails that are many days old. Durians have a strong persistence that is more than just a nuisance. The smell will not go away for weeks. I have learned of this fact when I return to Asia after living in Sweden for many years. In my youth, I never knew that durian was the smelliest fruit. For me, the smell of durian carried memories that I was deeply fond of. In Myanmar where I was born, eating durian was a family event. When it was in season, my parents would buy a bunch of them. Then they invited their brothers and sisters along with their children to share the meal. We were not allowed to eat until everyone had gathered around. Then my mother and uncle would take on the responsibility of opening the durian from the top. As it was peeled open, layers of seeds revealed itself along with its heavenly smell. We would scream in excitement. Then many hands reached out for the seeds that were covered with golden layer of soft skin. The seed itself was not edible. It was the golden layer that was. The feeding was a competition. If I was not quick, I would not get the best ones. Let me tell you. The taste was unbelievable. Its creaminess bathed my mouth in comfort. Swallowing it felt like a waste. I wanted it to linger in my mouth a little longer. It was never enough. I wanted more. And more. Before we knew it, a dozen durians were consumed in just an hour. These memories were bound to the smell of durian. When I eat it now, it will transport me back to the exact sensory pleasure I feel as a child. The smell activates the memory of all of the other senses associated to it. The olfactory bulb is right next to the hippocampus where long-term memories are mapped. When these areas are activated, the visual cortex and the auditory cortex follow suit. In other words, smell memories are synesthetic. For me, Durian is a gift from the Gods.

Speaking of which, it reminded me of another memory. I think it was the summer of 2009. My father proposed an interesting vacation idea. He wanted to drive us all the way to Paris from Gothenburg. More than 1500 km away. It would be our first road trip in Europe. We were very excited. Before I left, I underestimated how painful it would be to sit in the car for hours and hours. The journey was hard on us. Mom especially. But we endured. Along the journey we visited Malmö, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Antwerp and finally Paris. Each city more memorable than the last. Coming from Myanmar, it was hard to imagine how interconnected the roads were in Europe. The highways were impressive.

The best part of the trip which I still remember vividly was the visit to Disneyland Paris. At the time I lacked the vocabulary to describe how I felt. Everything was colourful. Everything smelled sweet and wonderful. There was that iconic castle in the distance. And fairy shops, food stands, mickey mouse balloons, lifelike cartoon characters. We saw Snow White, Cinderella, Simba, Donald Duck, Stitch and Tom and Jerry. Maybe… not Tom and Jerry. Anyway, it was magical. I thought this was what heaven would feel like if God commissioned Disney to build it for Him. Unlike the city Paris, Disneyland was very clean and well kept. Climbing the Eiffel Tower was awesome sure, but the positive atmosphere of Disneyland was unparalleled. Now I know why. To create this emotional reaction, the park is installed with special devices called Smellitizers that intermittently release vanilla, chocolate and strawberry scents into the environment. These smells mix with one another which then subconsciously influence the memories of the visitors. Some of the smells are themed around the park attraction. For example, Pirates of the Caribbean building emits a leathery smell with some gunpowder and sea salt. This scent-emitting technology is similar to how scent organs are portrayed in Brave New World. Huxley realised how effective smell was in creating positive memories in the mind decades before Smellitizer was patented by Robert E. McCarthy in 1984.

A coal miner from Wigan Pier. No one from the middle class would ever get close to him. Except Orwell.

When I meet other people who have been to Disneyland it is easy to connect and share our experiences. Memories are the bedrock of unity. To have a common identity, the members of the group must share common memories. It can be as simple as eating the same candy as a child or as grand as sharing a common destiny. Regrettably, smell memories can also divide the people. George Orwell has explored this extensively in his book ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. The middle class in 20th century Britain is championing for the needs of the working class through the Socialist ideology. But curiously they don’t change their habits, mannerisms nor have they met any working-class people. Why would they since the lower classes smell? This passage in Chapter 8 is particularly memorable.

“You can have an affection for a murderer or a sodomite, but you cannot have an affection for a man whose breath stinks – habitually stinks, I mean. However well you may wish him, however much you may admire his mind and character, if his breath stinks he is horrible and in your heart of hearts you will hate him. It may not greatly matter if the average middle-class person is brought up to believe that the working classes are ignorant, lazy, boorish and dishonest; it is when he is brought up to believe that they are dirty that the harm is done.”

The class separation in the British culture is reinforced not just by economic means but also on a sensory level. I have seen this human behaviour multiple times. Smells intensify class prejudice, but also inflame racial tensions. I have seen the Swedes recoil from the smells of Somali immigrants. I have seen the Burmese recoil from the smells of Chinese immigrants. I have seen the British recoil from the smells of Romanian immigrants. I am a minority in the three cultures I grow up in, so I am conveniently placed to notice these things. Unfortunately, I am not innocent either. When people are not used to foreign smells, they feel like being invaded. It is a physical repulsion. Because of the spices they eat, the perfumes they use or the clothes they wear, a group of people can emanate a distinct smell that binds them together. The members of the group are oblivious to this collective smell, but outsiders are acutely aware of it. Given enough push, the repulsion of this collective smell can activate the desire to vote for xenophobic policies. The hatred of foreign smells can easily snowball into ethnic cleansing territory with enough political will. It is the impulse to eliminate all the memories associated with the smell by violently removing the source. Scary stuff! One cannot understand the paradise of chemoreception without also accepting the snake that lives there.

Flavour

Choosing to come to London is the best decision I made. I mean I love Sweden, don’t get me wrong. I have a great time growing up there. The education system is top notch. That said, something is missing every time I eat. The breadth of food choices available is limited in Sweden. Not to mention, I hate the fermented fish called Surströmming. It smells awful. It tastes awful. Fermented foods are an acquired taste that starts from as early as pregnancy. If you miss that window of opportunity, appreciating fermented foods of another culture is difficult. In London I get to experience cuisines from all over the world. So many choices. Although I have eaten in over a hundred bars and restaurants, I keep coming back to Asian cuisines. I love Thai, Chinese, Burmese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, Korean, Persian, Bengali and Filipino foods. I love roast duck. I can’t run away from my Asian heritage. There is a certain richness to the flavour of Asian cuisines that European cuisines simply lack. European cuisines are cautious while Asian cuisines are bombastic. I want bombastic. I want explosion.

Salmon curry with rice. Fried broccoli with garlic and oyster sauce. Very simple yet tastes amazing all the same. My own creation.

Even though I eat out often to explore different cuisines, I also cook at home. My philosophy is this: if you can eat, you can cook. The art of cooking is disappearing in modern families partly due to laziness, partly due to the ease of using takeaway technology and partly due to the disconnect between generations. The more cooking is outsourced to industrial and digital processes, the poorer a culture becomes. Food is the foundation of a culture’s complexity. Food is the anchor to which all acts of generosity takes place. You cannot learn good cooking from a recipe book or an Instagram post. They don’t have heart. My mom teaches me everything she knows about cooking to give me a solid foundation. She also inherits her cooking from her mother. If I stop teaching my kids how to cook, the knowledge will forever be lost. I have to motivate my kids that cooking is an essential part of living a fulfilling life. Otherwise they will no longer have the expectation of what a good home cooked meal tastes like. This ignorance multiplied to millions of people means the death of a food culture.

The reason why I am so interested in cooking is because it feels amazing to conquer the creative challenge of constructing a flavour. The perception of flavour is a multisensory experience. Not only the food has to taste good. It has to smell good. It has to look good. It has to sound good. The environment you are eating in, the cutlery you are using, the people you are eating with, the overall mood you are in all affect the perception of flavour. A good rule of thumb for cooking a meal that is guaranteed to taste amazing is to use high quality ingredients. The essence of where the ingredients come from matters more than you think. Once you have procured the healthy ingredients, the next important thing to consider is how to make the meal smell amazing. 80% of what you taste actually comes from smelling through the mouth. To master smell, you need to have a basic knowledge of spices and herbs. The smell of the ingredients themselves isn’t good enough. Afterwards, taste and chemesthesis have to be considered at the same time. They are interconnected components. A balance has to be reached between them. An out of balance meal is like a song out of tune. It’s noisy and unsavoury. Lastly, the presentation of the dish must be considered. You have to be mindful of how you put the food and where you put it. These tips may sound too much of a bother. Trust me, it takes no more than 45 minutes to make a tasty meal. Cooking with the loved ones is a lot more fun than cooking alone. So, these 45 minutes will go by in a flash if you are all having fun. Cooking is a social experience. Always has been.

Now that you have reached the end of this chapter, I commend you. As always, I will permit you to eat a slice of cake as a reward. When you eat that cake, think about everything I have demonstrated on the pleasure of chemoreception. I can assure you that the cake will taste better than usual. It’s not your imagination. You literally perceive it better.

Chemoreception Pleasure Model

Amplification

Valence

Profiling

Recollection

Flavour

Further Reading

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