In class, we touched on the idea that smell and taste are specially linked to memory, relative to other senses. I notice this especially when I go to visit my old schools. The smell of Ms. Ashton’s third grade classroom (sanitation products and apple cinnamon-scented Lysol), the cafeteria (bleach and far too many intermingling food smells), the football locker room (sweat and evil), and even the pavement of the parking lot each have their own specific memories triggered.
Tastes have memories, too, but less so. I think the reason we say that taste is especially linked to memory is because taste is linked to smell, which is especially linked to memory. The taste of Diet Coke always reminds me of a lady from my church who, in my formative years, would carry four or five Diet Cokes in her purse and give them to my friends and me. But my least favorite thing about Diet Coke is the smell–the “aftertastes”–of aspartame (or whatever it is that makes it seem that way). It’s a steely sort of smell. But that’s what makes me think that it’s the smells of tastes that trigger memories, rather than the tastes themselves.
