Say Cheese

My feet used to stink. Or maybe it was my socks. Perhaps it was both, unable to assign singular blame. The point is now, they no longer stink. My feet, or my socks. And therefore my shoes don't stink when I take them off my feet. I'm odor free from the ankles down. How many people can make that claim these days?

I was reminded of my smelly lowest extremities when I read the WSJ book review titled 'Olfactory Bliss,' by Sam Kean that is a review of Harold McGee's latest called 'Nose Dive.' If you were wondering if is possible to write 654 pages on describing smells of all kinds, Mr. McGee's book answers that in the affirmative. 

There is a passage in the review where Mr. Klein gives us an example of Mr. McGee's attempt to put in words the smell of smelly socks: "discarded skin proteins, foot bacteria and sweat inside your socks essentially recapitulate the transformation of milk and brine into prized aromatic cheeses."

When I used to take my shoes off I always  (and others) always thought my feet smelled of Limburger, or at least Gorgonzola cheese.

I'm not nose blind. There is no longer a need to spray the surrounding air with Dr. Scholl's foot deodorizer. The money not spent has been incalculable. I don't know why my feet, socks and shoes no longer stink. My personal washing habits haven't changed for the better or worse in the past several decades. I just stink less.

The odors from socks and shoes are certainly not the only smells that Mr. McGee tackles. Mr. Klein tells us the smell tour starts in outer space when Mr. McGee describes the smell from an interstellar dust cloud. I guess we'll have to read the book to find out how Mr. McGee has been able to tells us the smell is akin to "whiffs of smelling salts, camp-stove fuel, vinegar, eggs and fruit."  Who knew?

And just in case you're booked on one of those space flights and they leave the window open, you can expect asteroids to be "redolent of sweat, almonds, fish and honey." If that's too overpowering, maybe someone will close the window on their side. (If you ask nicely.)

Nowhere in the book review is there any discussion of perfumes, although there certainly might be massive amounts of text on them in the 654 pages. I would certainly hope so, otherwise it would be a MAJOR omission.

The world just wouldn't be the same if the smells from the perfume selling floors of major department stores were left out. I'd hate to think there might be an omission of the description of the spritz that is guaranteed to get you laid 

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