Olfaction (Smell) w/ Jude Stewart
In this episode of Talk Nerdy, Cara is joined by journalist Jude Stewart to talk about her new book, "Revelations in Air: A Guidebook to Smell." They talk about the biology, physics, chemistry, psychology, and even the art of olfaction, a sense about which we have so much more to learn. Follow Jude: @joodstew.
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00:00.00
talknerdy
Well jude thank you so much for joining me today I am looking forward to talking about your new book revelations in air a guidebook to smell. This is such this is like 1 of those fun things for talk nerdy where.
00:02.94
Jude Stewart
Oh thank you for having me care. It's a pleasure and.
00:18.46
talknerdy
Very often. We get into super heavy science and I'm also very interested in talking about science as it sort of relates to other disciplines other experiences kind of everyday life and I think because of the work that you do because of the writing that you do. Focusing not necessarily on science but on like design and on culture and even writing about food. Um, this unique perspective is going to be really interesting I think for me and for the audience and oh I'm just excited.
00:49.50
Jude Stewart
Oh that's exactly what I would want someone to say if they were sitting your shoes. So I'm I'm obviously in the right place.
00:55.17
talknerdy
So I have to know then given that you have such a broad sort of beat I Guess we could say as a Journalist What brought you to want to write a book about smells. Ah.
01:06.51
Jude Stewart
Oh that is a great question. Um, well I've written I've written a lot about graphic Design. So and so you know I'm sort of thought of myself as a visual forward person. Um, and I think. Some point my eye just got kind of tired and I don't even know if I could have said that or put that into words until I sort of stumbled into this art exhibit and it was all around smell and ah basically what it was in miniatures a vacuum sealed room that. You went into and then the whole one of the walls was just a huge kind of look like an organ almost like a big organ in a church and it had the unusual ability of like but pumping out smells but then fairly quickly.
01:49.14
talknerdy
Ok.
01:50.50
Jude Stewart
Removing them from the room so you could have suddenly like the smell of band-aid and then the smell of you know, pine and then whatever other smell and it was so just like jolting and exhilarating and like pressed all the buttons and this it was Upsetting. It was everything and um I just thought Wow you know. This is the sense that's surrounding me all the time and I don't know anything about it and so when you actually look into the science of smell. That's that's weird because it's barely understood and so you know the rabbit hole like widened up and my curiosity grew and I just dive into it and and came up with this book.
02:22.15
talknerdy
Oh I Love that gosh I'm so like envious I would love to experience something like that. It's such a funny thing that you know like you said we we experience smell all the time and we like really take it for Granted. Of course, there's a whole swath of the population right now that is. Experiencing a nosmia due to Covid infection and they're very quickly realizing what it feels like to exist without their sense of smell. Um, how you know how much they probably did take it for granted but to be confronted with it in a very almost um, intentional way must have been. Ah. Emotional to some extent.
03:01.79
Jude Stewart
Yeah, it it really is and it's funny because one of the first things you have to kind of grapple with is this thing that feels like a private phenomenon but is actually you know well known enough that it has a name. It's called the olfactory verbal gap and it's like the way that you can recognize the smell but you can't quite put a word to it.
03:21.00
talknerdy
Mmm.
03:21.12
Jude Stewart
And so you sit in this space of being you know, viscerally like I know that smell but I can't name it and so you can't access it the way you're used to parsing reality and it's something just unusual and it sort of opens up a different way of being in the world and eventually if you sit with it for long enough. You'll realize oh, it's the smell of Sun's great or the smell of you know. Bacon or what have you Um, and and then reality kind of reasserts itself but it's fun to be and a little ah discomfiting to be in that space of familiarity and yet unfamiliarity.
03:49.36
talknerdy
Oh Gosh I Love that what a weird experience and it Also you know a sort of whole other layer to it which I know we'll get to as we dive into the science. Um, it's just something that I'm more familiar with with my background and in neuroscience is that smell is so. Deeply connected to memory and so sometimes you you get this evocative sort of um, ah, reference point you smell this thing you can't quite. You have that verbal like you said that verbal Gap you can't quite put your finger on what it is but you still start to feel things and you start to have familiar experiences. That are all just beyond reach because you're tapping into a sense memory.
04:28.91
Jude Stewart
So yeah, yeah I think it has to do with how smells are processed in the brain too which I mean this is going to be familiar to you but maybe not to your listeners. Um, the way that smells go up your nose and then they um ultimately they bind with proteins inside your receptors that are inside your olfactory bulb. And your olfactory pul is basically this extension almost of your brain to the outside world. It's the closest. Your brain gets to the outside world and from what I understand and you can crack me because you know your neuroscience but perhaps better than I do but ah, it's really tied up with your amygdala which is responsible for your emotions and the hippocampus which has to do with memory.
05:00.58
talknerdy
E e.
05:05.98
Jude Stewart
You know? so it's it's kind of bypassing entirely that new brain that has all the verbal stuff and the higher order logic and things like that and.
05:11.64
talknerdy
Yeah, and I think if I'm remembering correctly I'm probably going to have to Google this after the factor to know if I'm going to leave it in the um in the podcast or not because I may be full on wrong. But um, you know most of our senses vision touch taste. Um, you know most of these senses are.
05:19.64
Jude Stewart
Ah, that's good.
05:31.58
talknerdy
Sort of processed in a way station in our brain they actually have to pass through the thalamus before they can go to all of these higher order levels of of processing but smell is kind of the only one that doesn't it just goes like you said straight to the olfactory bulb and then sort of straight to these cortical areas where. Ah, emotion where memory where you know other types of processing happen and so it's almost like it's like a faster um, processing as well. So it's It's really cool. How much smell sort of ah a sense that we don't.
05:55.25
Jude Stewart
So.
06:05.57
talknerdy
Think about very often a sense that we definitely don't rely on as heavily as Vision. We almost think of it as something that like rodents and you know our dogs are really into smell but we're not very good at it and we don't really use it that much. It's It's got this kind of ancient evolutionary past in our brain that is still. Very striking. It's still very strong.
06:25.15
Jude Stewart
Yeah, well let's Google that and make sure that we have all those facts right? But I think you I think you're on it I think you were correct and another fact we can throw in there is that apparently our old old brain is was so tied up with smelling back in the day millions of years ago.
06:32.12
talknerdy
I.
06:40.49
talknerdy
Um, yeah I love that. Ah so let's talk. Let's talk a little bit about the sort of Anatomy The physiology some of the things that you learned as you went on this deep um research dive.
06:42.40
Jude Stewart
Ah, that it was called the Rh en cephalon the smelling brain. So it is indeed a sort of very early sense very early capability. We have.
07:00.27
talknerdy
What did you learn about how the how the nose works How how the nose connects to the brain. How smell molecules work. Um, that a you didn't know before and B maybe kind of surprised you or made you think differently about um how we smell.
07:14.22
Jude Stewart
Yeah, well, um, the first thing I guess was surprising was how little ah smell the process of smelling which is called olfaction is understood by scientists. Um, so while we've mostly worked out the other senses you know or they are much better mapped than ah you know.
07:26.60
talknerdy
Mmm.
07:32.90
Jude Stewart
They're they're pretty well mapped. Um, you know olfaction is really new. They just discovered the um olfactory receptors and sort of definitively prove that they're there in 1990 um and ah, you know we don't know a lot about how they function there are four different types. Um and yet they can. Ah.
07:52.80
talknerdy
Yeah, totally.
07:52.15
Jude Stewart
You know can I can I just pause for a second carera sorry I was just yeah, um, so so the olfactory receptors ah were discovered in 1990 which is relatively recent. Um, we have 4 different types but we can smell way more than 4 different things. In fact, um, even that number is ah kind of trying to be figured out right now. There's a.
08:09.66
talknerdy
E.
08:11.79
Jude Stewart
Couple studies out there that put the theoretical upper limit at 1000000000000 different smells for humans which is a little crazy so to what you were saying earlier about dogs being really great smellers and we don't think of ourselves as humans as being particularly good. We are extremely good at um, distinguishing between smells and really fine gradations. So if you've ever smelled like a.
08:14.68
talknerdy
Cheese.
08:31.74
Jude Stewart
Maybe a ah, really realistic. Um I don't know cherry candy smell or something you can tell the difference between that and like other types of Cherry you know Maraschino or like luxardo or the different types of cherry and ah, that's one of the many kind of exercises I kind of encourage in the book is just like clewing into that because. Sort of instinctively know that and that's why we recoal sometimes at fake smells. But um, we don't realize how finely graded we can get with our noses so that was real revelation right? there.
08:53.37
talknerdy
Me.
08:59.47
talknerdy
And oh wow, Yeah, that's fascinating I didn't It's I Sometimes wonder if the resolution that we try to put a number on or try to put a label on. Has more to do with our limits of categorization than it does with sort of the actual objective reality of this molecule versus that molecule and I'm wondering sort of how fine grain Do we get when we say oh I can smell this cherry versus that Cherry is it a distinct. Molecule that I'm smelling or is it that you know it's a slight variation on a theme. You know how do we decide the dividing line between this category and that category.
09:39.43
Jude Stewart
Well, that comes to another crazy fact, you know, just a sort of basic crazy fact is that we um, you're smelling many molecules. So probably there are some common molecules among all those cherries and and perhaps if they're you know dominant in the noot of Cherry then you know there might be a sort of signature molecule if you will.
09:46.51
talknerdy
M.
09:57.85
Jude Stewart
Like cinnamon. For example, their Cinnama dehyde is like is a note that everybody sort of picks up on as as ah, yes, the smell of cinnamon that is more unique to cinnamon than other smells but doesn't necessarily.. It's not exclusive to cinnamon and it could be another thing so you're smelling many molecules at Once. Um. And ah and you know the other crazy thing about about the process of olfaction is we don't really know how a factory receptors how they bind to Molecules. So There's this obviously the molecules have to be light enough to float in the air and become airborne and go up your nose. Um, but beyond that there's really, there's. We don't know why I think smell the way they smell I found it to be crazy to realize that you can invent smells and in fact, not only is that not a crazy science fiction thing but that's happening all the time. The perfumes fragrance industry. Working on that all the time. So these smells don't exist in Nature. They're not synthesizing copies. Although they are also synthesizing copies. But I'm talking about smells that did not exist on the planet until now and we can smell them so that's also wild.
10:51.41
talknerdy
So cool.
10:59.74
talknerdy
Um, and it's it's super wild and it makes you wonder about sort of the subjective experience of um, perceiving a smell that never existed that sort of we never evolved you know in Tandem with. Um, it makes you wonder am I relating this new smell that was invented by a scientist in a laboratory. Um am I relating it to something that it reminds me of am I getting a sense experience because it's similar to X or it has notes of Y or is there. Ah, a. Ah, real experience of novelty with smell like what a strange and I guess that happens when people travel it happens when people are exposed to new foods it happens when you know we go places where there are smells present that we just have never experienced before.
11:47.83
Jude Stewart
Yeah, and you're getting at another point which is like first you think oh we don't have language for smell and we don't have categories for smell and 1 feels kind of at a loss because you can't put even like name the smell you're smelling. For example.
11:56.83
talknerdy
Hear me.
12:01.94
Jude Stewart
Um, so that was my initial experience. But then what I realized over time is like okay this is not as crazy and foreign as I thought you know I have a pretty good um ah weighted I have a good sense of like how to talk about foods and to create categories around food and food and the taste of food is really largely kind of driven by smell. Taste is in your tongue but smell is mostly in your nose and it kind of provides that higher resolution sense of this is not just salty but you know it is this particular sort of taste. So um, so that's 1 thing and then the other thing is just that once you realize the categories exist and you can operate in them then.
12:30.23
talknerdy
Yeah.
12:39.18
Jude Stewart
Realize that ah you can get better about thinking about smells just by talking them through and relating them to other things and putting them in the matrix of your own mind somalias and people who have really refined sense of smell do that all the time and that is fundamental to how they educate themselves and.
12:53.42
talknerdy
Okay, so tell me if you came across any information or what you learned about individual differences in smelling ability and I ask this from a purely selfish narcissistic perspective because from what I gather from.
13:05.73
Jude Stewart
Ha.
13:10.41
talknerdy
You know all of my friends sort of weighing in and just you know being alive in the world and getting feedback from people I have an insane sense of smell like I often smell things that other people can't smell or long before they do or. I'm very sensitive to like refrigerator smells and garbage can smells and and certain things are like very assaulting to me that other people are like how can you even smell that or if somebody's cooking I'm like whoa did you just drop an onion in there and they're like how the hell were you aware of that from across the house. Um, and and this has always been sort of my experience. And I'm wondering a why. There's so much variability from person to person and B like what is responsible for that. Is it genetic. Is it like you said with Somalias they kind of train themselves like what's going on there.
13:54.83
Jude Stewart
Yeah I think it's a combination of things. It's a combination of you know, natural ability which just sounds like you have just in stage and then and then the way we like educate ourselves or clue into that ability so much like anybody can be musical but then I can't necessarily sit down to a piano unless they've been trained.
14:10.70
talknerdy
Yeah.
14:13.34
Jude Stewart
You know you can cultivate or not cultivate. Um I On the other hand I would say that I am like a solid B plus smeller and I think I started maybe as a B minus smeller. So I want to emphasize that I am somebody who followed their curiosity and was not necessarily inherently good at this and you know training is important. So.
14:18.30
talknerdy
Okay.
14:32.55
Jude Stewart
Um, but it gets a lot of the questions you put throughout. There are are ones that I think science is you're framing the next kind of generation of work for for allfaction scientists because a lot of them are not answered many of us have as Nasia as.
14:40.74
talknerdy
Mm.
14:45.48
Jude Stewart
Um, for specific smells that you may never discover because I don't know you've never happened to come upon Durian or whatever that highly specific thing is that you can't smell during it is a bad example though because Durian is extremely smelly and almost everyone can smell it. It is.
14:58.15
talknerdy
Oh dury ends that weird fruit that there are all those videos on like yeah you know online with cats smelling and then like gag.
15:04.36
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah, durian is a really stinky stinky fruit from southeast Asia that um gets made a lot into ice cream and I have a chapter on it in the book and you know I wanted to make friends with the smell that is initially very offputting and kind of.
15:13.12
talknerdy
So weird.
15:20.57
Jude Stewart
Become buddies with a stank and um I did and I really made a lot of ice cream and really came to enjoy it but all of us do have these um these specific things that we can't smell then if we happen to have never encountered that smell we might not ever discover. We have this lack so that is a common thing. Um, but yeah're you're describing a real.
15:33.74
talknerdy
M.
15:40.20
Jude Stewart
Ah, real mystery mystery that has yet to be fully unraveled.
15:42.62
talknerdy
Yeah, very cool Gosh. There's so many like when you first sat down to write this. What were the big sort of pressing questions that you had what were you like I don't know this I want to know this and then of course maybe downstream you found the answer. Maybe you realize that Even. Science doesn't know this. But what were some of those big curiosities.
16:01.40
Jude Stewart
Um, yeah I mean I Ah you know I was initially pulled in by the the kind of emotional tug of the whole experience of smells the way I felt that I couldn't speak about it the way it made me feel kind of awkward um to to not. Know what to say and want to know something more like as a writer I really wanted to fill that gap and think about that. Um you know it is very hard to write about Smell. So. It's an interesting writerly challenge. Um, but I would say that ah probably the the challenge that really hooked me was thinking. Okay well how could I.
16:26.39
talknerdy
Moon mhoo.
16:36.16
Jude Stewart
How could I get to know an object or something and start with its smell like we don't usually sort of greet objects or people or anything by sniffing them right? unless you know you're supposed to do that. That's kind of a weird move. Um, so I thought that.
16:43.76
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like not really socially accept of all. Yeah.
16:51.62
Jude Stewart
Yeah, right? mostly? Yeah I'm the smell lady like sniffing everybody but I own it you know, but um, but no, but seriously I wanted to sit down and think I thought about you know there's this famous passage in Proust at the beginning of Marcel Proust huge memoir about his childhood and he he smells this madeline. Cookie that has been dipped in lime tea and you know supposedly from that moment. He's trying to grasp like what does it remind him of and supposedly from that like the entire book on spools of his childhood you know and it's thousands of pages of beautiful prose.
17:15.56
talknerdy
E.
17:24.74
Jude Stewart
So I had this idea that was more modest. It was just like okay if I started with the smell like and tried to find the story inside of it. Whatever that story turned out to be um, you know could I could I Really just keep us inside the smell and find a place of illumination in a smell alone.
17:38.86
talknerdy
Yeah.
17:40.59
Jude Stewart
Um, so not just the like let's learn about pencils but let's learn about pencils through the smell of pencils the smell. Um and that seemed like a little crazy thought experiment but I was able to do that you know 50 times probably could do it more you know I really enjoyed that as ah as a process. Um, getting to know things through their smell first.
18:00.52
talknerdy
That's cool. Yeah, it's um, there. There's almost like an anxiety involved in that in that like I don't know I don't know why I'm thinking this. But maybe it's because it's like a childhood game or there's there's something about. If I close off the senses that I rely on most in the world and of course for most individuals. Ah who have access to all of the sort of evolved senses. Um, there's sort of a hierarchy right? like first we rely on vision. It actually takes up. The most amount of brain architecture and it informs our sort of um experiences and then we rely on I don't know is it sound next I'm not sure or touch or whatever and then of course there are many many people millions of people across the world who don't have access to certain senses and so they have their own version of that hierarchy.
18:40.83
Jude Stewart
The.
18:53.38
talknerdy
But there's something almost frightening to me about not having access to certain senses and and being confronted with something in a new way I don't know why.
19:03.75
Jude Stewart
Well and that's interesting. You say that because it sounds like you're very good at smelling. So you're probably better qualified to do this but that I did. But yeah yeah, and I wanted. Yeah.
19:11.15
talknerdy
Well maybe I'm afraid the smells will be like offensive or something like I'll be surprised by them I don't know.
19:19.15
Jude Stewart
Well, that's true and that was important I I realized that when I sat down many things have smells so when I sat down to think about what would be the chapters of the book I I had to make some decisions about the guardrails and 1 of them was I'm not going to make anybody sit inside a really awful awful smell without some prior awareness of what they were getting into you know.
19:29.96
talknerdy
M.
19:38.40
talknerdy
You're right.
19:38.80
Jude Stewart
Um, and or you know so there's there's gasoline. There's skunk. There's ah durian. But you know you know what you're getting into and you can skip that chapter if you don't like it but smell really requires you know trust because it does open you up and it.
19:47.23
talknerdy
Right.
19:53.13
Jude Stewart
And it and it kind of strips you of your verbal capabilities and sometimes plugs you back into memories and things and so there's ah it makes you vulnerable. But I found the really ah moving part of writing the book after a while was that smelling is is kind of like mindfulness turned inside out you know instead of sitting and just. Breathing and thinking about you know my mantra or whatever you're Smelling. You're just sitting with the world. You know you're you're sitting in front of something and taking it in and you can't really smell forever like your nose will exhaust pretty redly and um.
20:14.73
talknerdy
A.
20:24.25
talknerdy
Mm.
20:25.42
Jude Stewart
You know so you have to just kind of be patient and just sit with it again and I would sit for days at a time and you know think about the smell effects and then try and capture it in words and you know pull a story out of it So you know I had to just be calm and. Go back to it again and then see and bring ah a sense of Curiosity. So I don't know if this was ah, really a marvelous kind of process of transformation for me that smell smell began and and has kind of continued in my life.
20:51.53
talknerdy
Gosh It sounds like it and and one of the things that I'm sort of connecting it to in my mind as you are describing. It is not just the concept or the experience of of mindfulness which really takes from it. A lot of like Eastern but also some Western philosophy. Um, ah, philosophical tenets of sort of like the here and now being very very present being in the in you know the extreme present moment and just noticing um what that moment offers but also it takes me to a place probably because I have this strong bias because this is where my work has taken me lately. To a sort of existential humanistic approach to psychology which is also very focused on the here and now it's very much focused on ah the current phenomenology like the current experience and there's something I don't know like very fundamentally. Human about what you just mentioned that smells exhaust pretty quickly like your nose gets exhausted pretty quickly and you almost have to like resmell it's It's very similar to ah an existential psychology concept of of sort of like being in how do I put this.
21:51.70
Jude Stewart
And.
22:05.47
talknerdy
All of these authors that came long before put it so beautifully and I'm about to like mangle and butcher all of their work. But this idea that when you're in an existential mode of being when you're really thinking about the intensities of like mortality and of of freedom and responsibility and of loneliness and of meaning you can't stay in that. Place for very long because it's threatening and it's exhausting and it's really confronting and so you slip back into a mode of what they call normal being of like consumption and and entertainment and sort of like slipping back into you know, getting caught up in frivolous things. And then you can go back to a very existential or what they call ontological mode of being but it's you just can't stay there that long you exhaust yourself and that's sort of like a metaphor for the human experience that it's like this constant waffling back and forth because.
22:48.34
Jude Stewart
Um, yeah.
22:57.24
talknerdy
Too much of 1 thing shuts down your senses.
22:59.22
Jude Stewart
yeah yeah I think that oh gosh just like I'm so thumbs up in everything you said there. But yeah, it's true because also smell is on the 1 hand and we're presenting it as this you know this complex thing and it it can be and it can be fleeting and it can be hard to grasp on the other hand it can be.
23:17.47
talknerdy
So move me here. Yeah.
23:18.19
Jude Stewart
Comforting and every day and you know you're you're cutting the lemon just smelled the lemon you know, just if you had a really frazzled day I think on some level when we have a frazzel day at work and we've been you know like furiously emailing and like brain and jarring it like crazy. You know like you're not in your body when you're doing you know your job and and. Least for my experience you know I'm just frenzily doing the thing and at the end of the day I want to cook and it's on some level. It's because you know you don't have to think about it and because it's just with your hands and I think it's just the senses also and just making that space. So I now I'm aware when I'm cutting the lemon Like. Smelling the lemon. The lemon is creating a sort of bower and it's just it's just this kind of suesourra in time that you know blocks me out from whatever else I was doing and so now I'm just kind of paying attention to that a little more and and that pumps up the sense of reality you know this is like a feedback loop.
24:10.80
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, and that really takes you to that sort of mindful almost meditative space I Like to think about um, just walking like I like to walk I'm not very.
24:11.55
Jude Stewart
Um, if you're more aware of it. You become more aware of it and.
24:24.28
talknerdy
Good at doing it every day but when I find the time and the motivation and all of that I like to just go on a walk and I live in a relatively urban area where where are you? you're in Chicago. Ok yeah, so I'm in l a so you know similar like it's it's.
24:36.31
Jude Stewart
I'm in Chicago where are you? okay.
24:41.77
talknerdy
Chicago and l a I think have a similar vibe in that they're sort of like urban suburban they're not like New York unless you live in like the downtown portions or like very specific neighborhoods. It's not. You know, just building upon building upon skyrise or high- risee upon highrise there are neighborhoods in l a just like there are neighborhoods in Chicago there are streets with houses on them and so you know depending on where you are depending on where you live you can have.
25:01.28
Jude Stewart
So.
25:07.39
talknerdy
For me at least I have like a multitude of experience. You know I'm walking by a more industrial region I'm walking by trees I'm walking by you know I can see the mountains in the distance I smell ah cooking I smell the taco truck and then I smell this one tree. That's very fragrant and now I'm walking by Jasmine on somebody's fence. You know that's growing or bouginvilia and. It's really cool to sort of direct myself to the smells as I'm taking a long walk and and just drink in all of the things that the city has to offer because the physical action of walking means that you're propelling forward through space and so you're being. Bosed in any given moment to a completely different kind of suite of smells which I just love.
25:49.50
Jude Stewart
You just said all my favorite l a spells too I love the way when you walk past people's houses all the different flowers you know and the and the citrus sometimes. And yeah, it's great I love that I'm a little envious because right now in Chicago you know that.
25:55.19
talknerdy
Ah, yeah, yeah.
26:03.79
Jude Stewart
There's not much to smell. It's hard to smell when things aren't warm and kind of moist outside your your nose is pretty absent from smell. So sometimes I get you know a little whiff of like wood smoke or um, you know downtown. There's blummers chocolate factory here in Chicago and so you can get a whiff of that and that's like fantastic.
26:15.98
talknerdy
Ah, oh yeah, because you might almost get like the striking experience of your right? Everything's deadened in the cold and like you said because of the physiology of how the nose works you need like moisture and you need warmth.
26:21.80
Jude Stewart
But you know there's not a ton to smell the weather.
26:27.61
Jude Stewart
Yeah.
26:33.86
talknerdy
In order for the smells to kind of come to life but because of that that that mutedness is almost heavily punctuated when you walk by a coffee shop or when you walk by ah Chimney smoke. It's so strong against the background of almost nothingness.
26:48.23
Jude Stewart
So yeah, Absolutely yeah I get into that and there's the chapter in my book about the smell of snow which is a little bit of a cheat because technically snow does not have a smell but it has this process that goes on in your nose.. It's just more or less what you said where you're registering the blankness but then you might register after that a sudden rise in humidity which. Kind of bring some smells in and then there's this kind of tingling that happens in some some nerves in your face called the trigeminal nerves and those 3 things together are kind of combined are pretty good. Reliable indicator of snow coming. So um.
27:20.50
talknerdy
Cool I had no idea I know I've like really avoided like my snows. Yeah I'm still one of those very naive people who was like what is this white stuff falling out of the sky I shall retreat like every time I'm exposed to snow.
27:22.30
Jude Stewart
Anyway I kind of enjoy feeling that yeah well stuck come to Chicago and you can smell snow with me. But.
27:37.50
talknerdy
So I probably just don't have a practiced experience in it because I grew up in Texas I lived in New York for one fateful year and I got the hell out because it was like 1 of the coldest winters ever and then came to l a and have not looked back past. Ah back since? Um, yeah I'm I'm trepidaceious in the snow for sure.
27:50.20
Jude Stewart
Well, you're in the good smell space stay where you are but we have we have we have lilacs here in the spring we have ah the lovely smells on the beach and a lot of good food trucks in Chicago where we're doing all right in the smell department.
28:01.21
talknerdy
Um, yeah I Love that and so talk to me a little bit more about this experience of sort of cold and what cold does to the nose and and does does this kind of snow. You just told us the pathway of like why snow quote has a smell but doesn't really have a smell. Is that at all similar to the smell of rain or is that a completely different like petrocor is really that we're smelling certain molecules being released off of the concrete and out of the grass.
28:29.52
Jude Stewart
Yeah Petroorps is ah is ah another smell that is it operates a little differently but Petrocor is the the smell of parched Earth after rain so you need a little bit of a drought before you can register this.
28:34.73
talknerdy
E.M.
28:42.88
Jude Stewart
And what it is is plants ah releasing chemicals into the soil and so when the rain finally comes and arates the soil it releases this chemical. So what you're smelling is that aerated chemical. Um and some some researchers in the sixty s looked into this to try to figure out what is this magical chemical and what is it for. And they thought might be fertilizer which it turned out not to be what it is is the plants kind of it. It makes helps them compete with each other for the limited rainwater. So. It's kind of the opposite of a fertilizer. It's sort of ah you know a weapon. Um, but it has a beautiful smell at which we all recognize when when it comes it doesn't last for very long.
29:10.31
talknerdy
B dopa.
29:21.58
Jude Stewart
And I found it so lovely that there was a word for this. Um I didn't know that this word petricor exists. It comes to the greek it means blood of stones and um, and yeah, yeah.
29:26.18
talknerdy
Yeah, whoa, Really what a cool like etymology I Love that.
29:35.42
Jude Stewart
Yeah, and you know and it also is ah it's very common in perfume in a certain part of India they make a perfume from it because if you think about India's cycles they have the monsoons is a really long extended dry spell and then the rain comes and. So they're able to extract that from the soil there and make perfume from it. So there's another name's called Meaty Attar yeah it's really cool.
29:56.89
talknerdy
That's so cool. It's definitely a smell you experience living in California because we we also struggle with drought and then when the rains come they come and you really can smell it because it's you know if it rains here. It's probably not rained in months.
30:04.45
Jude Stewart
Um.
30:13.28
talknerdy
Um, and we've been having some rains recently. So I've I've really been able to smell that petrick or recently and I love It. You know there's another. Ah, it's kind of coming for me I know it's like a left turn. It's a random um thought but there's another source of smell that's got a lot of controversy around it and I've I've kind of. Read about it a little here and there but it's one of those other words that maybe some people haven't heard of how do you pronounce It is it ambergry have you done? Ah, a lot of deep dives into into Ambergris. Yeah.
30:39.47
Jude Stewart
Ambergrease. Yeah yeah, amberg grease is allowing me to say on the radio. The phrase will poop. Um, so what it is is. It's a perfume ingredient that comes from sperm whales.
30:46.71
talknerdy
Yes, yes.
30:53.59
Jude Stewart
And I say Whale poop but let's like put that in air quotes because sperm whales are very hard to observe so we don't know that much about them scientists rarely are to in direct Contact. So But what happens as far as we understand is they eat a lot of cuttlefish and these cuttlefish have little you know, beaks and bones. And the bones pass through their digestive system and um I guess make like a fecal impact or that something happens and these it kind of gets gummed up in their system and it gets kind of pooped out into the water and it truly is kind of poopy when it's sort of natural State. Ah, but then these these lumps will just cure in the ocean water and they just float around Planet Earth potentially for years and then they wash up on Shore and if they floated around and cured for long enough they transform from a kind of really fecal kind of a barn Barney smell to um. You know something really beautiful is a sort of set suggestion of flowers and it's a really expensive perfume ingredient that is is quite mysterious to.
31:54.36
talknerdy
Ah, it's so weird like I often think about and I know that this doesn't relate but in my mind it relates because I have a weird mind but the other day I was eating an artichoke and I you know I I prepped the artichoke and I cut all the little like points off of it and I cut the top and I cut the stem and I put it in the. Steamer basket and I steamed it for like 45 freaking minutes and then I like prepared my little butter with my aote seasoning and I was dipping the leaves in it and eating them and I was like good god the person who looked at an artichoke first and said I'm a figure out how to eat that was like a creative genius.
32:27.29
Jude Stewart
I know.
32:31.99
talknerdy
And I think very often about these weird experiences of like who what perfumer back in the day thought I'm going to go around collecting these like whale poop nuggets because they have this magical ingredient that smells so good to me even though it's really strong so I need to just. Dill it down and use just a little bit of the molecule like what a weird people are very inventive I Guess that's all I have to say about that. Ah.
32:53.86
Jude Stewart
We are inventive. You know it's funny with that. So talking about Amberg grease makes me think of like how much armchair adventure this was to write this book during the pandemic where we couldn't go anywhere and there wasn't anything to do.
33:03.28
talknerdy
Right.
33:08.71
Jude Stewart
Right? So I talked to several different ambergre dealers. Um, you know through Facebook and various places and essentially wield and deal then got them to send me little tiny lumps of ambergreas from across the world because I am very persuasive. Um, but you know this stuff is expensive. So I kind of needed to just talk a good game and um.
33:26.28
talknerdy
Yeah.
33:28.28
Jude Stewart
People were very generous and sent me these things and it was what it ended up being was this accidental collection of 4 little lumps one of which really did smell like a barnyard but 1 of which was like just kind of shifting into that other that that higher register that you you can. You're like wow. Okay now I get it. And so I lined them up in a row and I had my whole family in our little pod. We had a pandemic pod. We all got together including the kids and we like we did this thing that um I guess evergrease people do. But it's called a hot needle test.
33:57.95
talknerdy
Ok.
33:59.51
Jude Stewart
But you take a needle and you like light the end of it to be really hot and then you stick it inside the ember grease and then this little jet of like brilliant technicolor smell comes out for a brief period. It's much more vivid. Um, so we did that with all the little lumps and we could all sort of smell the difference and line them up in a row and this was like part of our pandemic fun was feeling like we were scouring the beaches in New Zealand and ah finding emberggre.
34:23.63
talknerdy
I Love that I'm wondering if there was anybody in your pod who's listening right now who's like yeah Fun. We had so much pandemic fun when you were writing this book I bet you there's there are vastly different. Um ah, subjective experiences some. Some people in your pod were like this is so cool and some were like oh God Please don't make me smell anything else.
34:44.40
Jude Stewart
I mean I think at the time that I was presenting some fun options. But you know like this consumer's nothing else you know, but they were very generous. They were very generous and I think they probably will listen I'll tell you we made we made truffles over.
34:50.33
talknerdy
Ah, ah, right? You're right? yeah.
34:59.37
Jude Stewart
Pasta together which was fun and we did a couple couple little smell experiments I mowed their lawns so I could smell Fratish freshly cut grass. So you know they they benefited in some ways.
35:00.28
talknerdy
Yeah. Well, that's fun. Did you did you do the very simple experiment of like holding an apple versus a pear under somebody's nose and then and then taking a bite and and trying to guess which fruit it was.. It's so funny how when something is. Texturally almost the exact same smell really does overpower almost everything else when it comes to quote taste.
35:25.86
Jude Stewart
Yeah, oh that's a good one. Um, yeah, no I did not do that one. But um, you are alluding to like the the idea of simple exercises which I definitely have in the book because I wanted to just bring it back to kind of simple things. That's that's a good one I might have some bonus Dvd material there to. Be had. But yeah, another one in the book that I enjoyed a lot was um, just like if you have a lot of 1 type of cooking ingredient like if you have a lot of different oils or if you have different um vinegars I think is a really good one. You can just pour them out into little jars and at first when you smell them they all smell like vinegar and but then when you smell them again.
35:55.51
talknerdy
M.
36:04.16
Jude Stewart
You can really readily distinguish between them and it makes you feel like a smell Genius like you feel like you have confidence to to take this idea on. So it's a confidence builder. Yeah.
36:12.19
talknerdy
I love that and do you do you mean? kind of like the difference between an Apple cider and a balsamic and a white wine or do you mean like you have 4 different balsamics that are you know, different flavors or or you know different manufacturers. Okay, yeah, yeah.
36:23.51
Jude Stewart
Oh I think start start at the beginning like yeah Apple cider to balsamic or what have you and I mean I'm not fancy enough to have more than one balsamic. but ah but yeah but this is like a thing that you know, kind of mimics. What other people do when they're when they're training. Ah, you know their noses are really refined things like making perfumes or somalie I was very nervous about talking to a somali and and being that that dumb person who was like taste like red wine. No, it's white wine. You're an idiot.
36:49.75
talknerdy
Yeah, right? yeah.
36:54.50
Jude Stewart
But ah, but that's exactly what they do is they start out at first you know and they then they're like okay we're going to smell or they they will start with a broad class of of wines and then they eventually will move down to you know grudereltlingers from this region of Austria go you know? ah but nobody starts there. They have to build their way up.
37:10.97
talknerdy
Um, you know I'm curious I mean speaking about talking to a Somalia and talking to different people for the research of the book that have like a lot of exposure and experience to granular sort of fine resolution smells did you in your research. Determine if there are universals to smell you know obviously a lot of smells are culture bound a lot of experiences are culture boundund but is there anything kind of like the smile or the laugh. It's such a universal expression that every culture has it are there universally. Yummy smells and universally disgusting smells.
37:45.97
Jude Stewart
Ah yes, um, well I would say that there's more agreement around the universal yummy smell. Um I mean ah vanilla seems to be 1 that that is very inoffensive and largely pleasant to to most people around the world.
37:53.58
talknerdy
Okay.
38:00.57
talknerdy
Ah, ok.
38:04.25
Jude Stewart
And there might be a couple reasons for that. Um you know vanilla is ah and like kind of supports sort of a supporting actor that makes the the starrings flavor taste really good kind of rounds out flavors and so you might have noticed in baked recipes like sometimes you just put in vanilla even though you're making a chocolate cake.
38:19.36
talknerdy
Right.
38:21.20
Jude Stewart
It's because vanilla does this thing of making everything a little more nuanced and beautiful. Um, but it also doesn't trigger. Um these nerves in your face I referred to earlier they're called the trigeminal nerves and those are the nerves that get activated when you like cut up um onions or you have like stinging hot peppers and. A lot of times why we don't like a certain smell or taste is because it triggers that nerve in a way that we don't enjoy so the absence of triggering it is kind of makes people like vanilla because it's not doing a thing they hate. Sometimes yeah.
38:43.34
talknerdy
M.
38:50.15
talknerdy
Well interest and so it may be that you really like it or it may just be that it's not it or that that it's inoffensive to you? Yeah exactly? yeah.
38:57.89
Jude Stewart
It's inoffensive. Yeah yeah, but it is interesting to think about like at the other end. Well so what is the universally like hated smell and that one is harder to get to and the reason is because of Habituation. You know if you are living in a part of the world where you're smelling a lot of garbage all the time. I Mean you may not love it. But you get used to it and so it doesn't have the same shock factor. Um, and so there's ah some stuff in the book about about ah the gut. The I think it was the military's attempt to create like a universal stink. Bomb.
39:16.87
talknerdy
Yeah.
39:26.59
talknerdy
You mean.
39:29.50
Jude Stewart
And I believe Mary Roach who's also been on your show. She's written about this too and it's like harder to do than they all thought and the reason is because of this habituation. So I gather that the way to make the universal stink bomb is to somehow create like a very weird combo where the 2 or 4 smells.
39:33.42
talknerdy
Right.
39:47.88
Jude Stewart
Don't really resolve. You know that they are sort of still present as chocolate and gasoline and I don't know arsenic or whatever it is you know and that you smell all 3 of them at once that's the sort of ticket and it's really hard to do yeah.
39:51.47
talknerdy
Write? yeah. Oh it sounds like it I'm wondering if there is though a sort of because I'm trying to think of like our common biology and our common evolution and approach it less from a psychological perspective which is sort of where my mind usually is and more from a. You know, kind of genetic perspective and 1 thing that is universally offensive to us is death. You know we evolve to be afraid of death and to recoil from it. Um, obviously my mind is on death a lot because it's an area of of my current kind of dissertation research. Um, but I'm curious about.
40:17.33
Jude Stewart
And. Okay.
40:31.94
Jude Stewart
M.
40:35.84
talknerdy
Like whether you know these different factors like cadaverine and putracine and these different factors that sort of take over as ah, some a body is decaying. Most people have a very strong reaction to the smell of death and I'm wondering if that occurs across the globe.
40:48.24
Jude Stewart
Yes, yeah I mean I would I would think that that that might be the case. Yes, but um, it might be that you don't necessarily react to it until you know it's the smell of death.
41:01.19
talknerdy
Ah, yeah.
41:02.46
Jude Stewart
You know again thinking about these molecules right? So you mentioned several molecules that are some of which are unique to to cadavers but some of which appear in other things so you know for example, ah Pecorino cheese and baby vomit smell pretty similar because they have the same dominant. Molecular note. But if it's if you're told it's pecorino cheese you're like yummy and if it's baby vomit. Maybe not so much right? So context matters. Yeah, so no doubt there's probably a molecule um of of the ones that you mentioned that you know really pings death and is unmistakably death and yes, we probably don't like that.
41:26.43
talknerdy
It's so weird.
41:39.90
Jude Stewart
And it rolls up to the kind of the bigger reason why we smell in the first place. It's ah it's a form of defense system right? where it's a way our body has of of observing threats or opportunities that have not yet reached us. So if I smell the smoke I won't go towards the fire. You know if the food smells off I'm not going to eat it. Um.
41:43.64
talknerdy
And.
41:53.10
talknerdy
Right? right.
41:58.89
Jude Stewart
You know? so it's It's a you know we are. We are kind of biased towards like picking out the smells that might want to kill us or or indicate death. So yeah I think you're onto something there.
42:03.56
talknerdy
Pray? yeah. Yeah, it's um, it's It's weird how much cheese like if you ever go to one of those really fancy cheese bars and they describe the cheeses the same way that ah somalias describe Wine A lot of the. Descriptors that are listed are like why would I eat that you know it's like got a slightly vomitous taste and you're like what I don't want. Ah.
42:31.47
Jude Stewart
Yeah, totally totally totally context is everything. That's the.
42:39.74
talknerdy
That's you know, speaking of you're so right? Yeah context is everything speaking of vomit I think for me personally one of the foods that is revolting to me that a lot of my friends just don't get why I can't eat. It is um wings like hot wings. They're so gross to me because they taste like puke like I just can't or they smell like it I don't know that stomach acid extra vinegary like mixed with the spices. There's just something about it that like absolutely reminds me of vomit and I don't know how people can be like vomit I'm going hard on this. But maybe that's not what it tastes.
42:58.67
Jude Stewart
Yeah.
43:11.50
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah I mean I know I think that you're onto something there. It's interesting to think about how when I think you think about flavor as a concept I didn't realize this until I wrote the book. But as I alluded to before a taste is is on your tongue and that is there's.
43:14.60
talknerdy
Like to them I don't know.
43:21.40
talknerdy
6
43:30.75
Jude Stewart
Pretty much 5 possibly six tastes. Interestingly there's another one in addition to umami ah that is being debated right now as is ah a 6 taste but there's basically 6 and um, you know so if you hold your nose and you you taste a cup of coffee. It will taste better but you won't necessarily know that it's coffee.
43:36.91
talknerdy
Oh.
43:47.76
talknerdy
Right.
43:49.46
Jude Stewart
Only when you open your nose and let those smell molecules come in. Can you say oh this is latte or it's espresso or whatever it is and it's that finer grade thing but on top of that those 2 things then we also have like mouthfeel and um, you know temperature and. Other things crunchiness and so forth and all of that together is what creates flavor and so when I think about hot like hot wings. It's like yeah, it's that that high acid smell but also they're slimy like I just hate the way. It's all over my fingers I shouldn't say this my husband's for Buffalo I'm supposed to love wings. But.
44:20.70
talknerdy
Ah, right.
44:23.95
Jude Stewart
Tell no one Kara don't let anyone know, but ah yeah, you know it's that's that and that gets to larger thing of not just thinking about flavor but thinking about how our senses are concatenating everything in the world all the time so I was kind of. Bowled over to discover that there's like 22 senses and counting. You know scientists are still figuring out the 5 that we think of as the big 5 is really only the beginning of how we like piece together the world. Um, so you know thinking about things like proprioception which is your sense of your body in space. It's like why you can walk down the.
44:53.57
talknerdy
E.
44:57.66
Jude Stewart
Cellar steps without the lights on because you feel your foot falling on the ground you know where it is um you know there's many other um, different senses like that and together where they're creating reality for us and.
45:07.24
talknerdy
You know when when I think about the sort of um, the reality of each unique individual on the planet who has their own unique history whether that's their cultural history. Whether it's their familial history or it's simply their history of. Of kind of random experiences. Um and and you've got the biological. You've got the like like I just said the experiential sort of the historical and all of these things come together to make us individuals to make us unique and something as simple as let's say. Perfumes like um like consumer products that are produced to appeal to individuals just like clothing like when we go shopping. We have a lot of options and we say okay I'm going to choose this because it's an expression of my whatever personality when it comes to the. Perfumes that we choose to use or the colognes I remember going to um, a couple perfumeries in Paris whenever I go to Paris I always like to bring home things I can only get in Paris right? And so there's a there's a taxidermist I always visit called de roll. There's a couple perfume shops that I always visit because it's the only place that you can find these things. Um and I love it and I remember getting like a crash course in ok, you've got your. Ah, what they call your spicy perfumes and you've got your florals and you've got your whatevers and and they you know smell this and what do you like? and and so many of them are like highly offensive to me and then so many of them are like really beautiful to me and I'm thinking who is the person. Who wants that that reeks versus you know this is amazing but a very a completely different person could walk in and go ooh I hate the way that smells it's to me. It's just such a bizarre thing that that there are universals about smell but it's so individual.
47:00.64
Jude Stewart
Yeah, first off I Love the the visual of you like gadding from the taxidermist straight to the like perfume place I Hope you bring like a you know a big dead cat with you and just like engage with a snooty salesperson and yeah.
47:02.00
talknerdy
What we like and what we don't like.
47:16.00
Jude Stewart
Okay, sidebar. That was my my thought while you were talking.
47:16.76
talknerdy
I Have to say it's the extra side bar I Remember the first time I went to day Rollll and I came home with um, a taxidermied crow on a skull. It was very like poeesque and we brought it. We had to bring it as a carry on through through like the airport and.
47:27.65
Jude Stewart
Nice.
47:35.20
talknerdy
I remember the agents in the in the and at Charles De Gaulle looking at us with this look on their face and we can't speak french and we're like taxi Dale me and the guy was like yeah okay, whatever go under ridiculous.
47:47.88
Jude Stewart
Yeah, oh my gosh totally I have a similar experience with a metallic swine pig ah sculpture that I I tried to take through Frankfurt and it kept pigging on the metallic anyway, so hi Bart.
47:59.91
talknerdy
I Love it.
48:02.71
Jude Stewart
But yes to to your point. Yeah that it's so highly individualized and it has to do with all of the experiences that we've ever had as a person and and we're still adding to that information today which is exciting to me and like hopeful to think that you're walking through the world and there will be new smells and that you'll have new feelings about them and that they will. You know, ah roll up into the individual that is you but also connect you with you know, ah communities and and like make you new friends. You know this is lovely kind of thing. Um, but yeah, but you were saying about talking about the different categories of smells I realized I didn't touch on this earlier. But.
48:26.27
talknerdy
Yeah.
48:36.14
Jude Stewart
Another crazy thing about smell is that there is no alphabet. We don't know yet what the kind of commonality. Ah you know the way that we know like there's the wavelengths of the color spectrum for example or you know you have the audio wavelengths for for sound. You know we don't have a grip on that yet of like.
48:38.65
talknerdy
E.
48:44.79
talknerdy
Yeah.
48:52.70
Jude Stewart
What are the basics. What are the real fundamentals and I found that to be so fascinating and there were many people who tried to create smell classifications on a scientific basis I have a link that I'll send you that I ultimately used as sort of a loose organizing principle for for my chapters. But even that is somewhat provisional. It's but it's relatively recent Science. Um I Want to have some basis for why I chose the categories I chose but it was important to me to make sure. Yeah, oh sorry, do you have a thought.
49:14.29
talknerdy
Yeah, no I was just gonna say it's like they're definitely constructs and probably depending on your um, ah your utilization like depending on your um. What's the word I'm looking for kind of your discipline. You're going to categorize things differently so like a perfumer is going to have their categories and that's going to be different than a food scientist and that's going to be different than you know, somebody who is interested in like can dog smell cancer and what are the molecules that are present there like. That probably really informs how people categorize smells.
49:50.57
Jude Stewart
Yeah, the the classification when habits use is an interesting. Yeah, that's an interesting thing to bring to that totally? Um, yeah I really wanted to make sure there was room for stink in the in the ah in how I figured out like I love me some stink. Um, you know with the limits. But.
50:03.51
talknerdy
Ah, who said.
50:07.62
Jude Stewart
But yeah I wanted there to be like a full range of like the experiences you know that one can have with smells and um, the last point where you were saying was sometimes you smell a perfume and you're like oh who could go for that. It is interesting. How some of the most beautiful smells can often have a kind of a ping of rotting or a ping of some kind of. Something disgusting in them and it sort of heightens the beauty. It's like when you think of a beautiful woman who has um, a molar beauty mark and something that you know, kind of the flaw that shows how incredible she actually looks um yeah, there are spot like Jasmine and Lily that often are at their peak when they have that just kind of slightly slicky undertone of of death.
50:35.58
talknerdy
Write.
50:46.40
Jude Stewart
Like that the the flower is about to fall apart. Um, so yeah, it's an interesting ah counterpoint to what we were talking about before with Zeph and.
50:49.37
talknerdy
Gan. And so many so many perfumes that are so attractive I think to people have have a musky almost like a body odor undertone to them which I mean I guess it makes sense objectively like kind of scientifically when you think about the fact that like we are mammals mammals sniff each other's butts. You know like. Like you look at how your dog greets another dog and we don't do that as people because that would not be polite, but there must be almost something like sex like sexual kind of like the the core of the smell of another living breathing person. You know, kind of these very biological smells aren't always good. But if there's a slight undertone of that mixed with these other things that that actually makes especially with perfumes the more complex like Musk is a very common note and Musk is like b o like that's what that is.
51:44.52
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah, it's a smell of your body sort of amped up a little bit. Well it's crazy the the range and variety of of smells that your body is giving off at any moment is telling all kinds of things about you and about your state of Health The kind of food you eat.
51:48.14
talknerdy
Yeah.
52:00.93
Jude Stewart
Um, which maybe ties back to your culture and and you know your regular cuisine um information about your Immune system is coming off of your body as as a smell and we make mating choices to some degree with those things in mind too. So um, you know it is a little wild to picture like and think about just this. Smell of my my arm which I can't even take in as a smell really because it's like totally neutral to me Nonetheless. It's just rich with information that someone else can Perceive. Um.
52:23.59
talknerdy
Oh yeah, I always think about um, like people's homes like they're little hovels like how when you walk into somebody's home. There are these unique smells that are them and you can also kind of smell what somebody. Prioritizes like I'm a very acetic kind of like my house has nothing on the surfaces. There are rooms with a lot of books and sometimes there's that book smell. But I also like candles and I like incense and I like to induce a smell in my home but some people's houses just have their sort of. Smell like I don't know why I go back to this um image and maybe you remember what movie or Tv show. This is from maybe it was from um ah oh god what was what was the movie with now ah page page. Ah his name is now oh god. He used to be Ellen Page he's that's his dead name and now he's Ethan page or whatever Juno yeah in Juno I think it's in Juno. There's a scene where Michael say a god I I eventually got there. Um is like talking about so a girl he wants to date or or maybe maybe it's.
53:23.15
Jude Stewart
Oh yes yes, yes yes okay so what? which movie was a Juno or yes, okay.
53:41.27
talknerdy
Ah, different movie but and he's like her house smells like soup and I don't know why that really resonates for me but like some people have very soupy smelling house like it's weird.
53:52.14
Jude Stewart
it's true yeah it's extraordinary what is it about like childhood smells of your friend's House. You know I mean I can walk into someone's house and be like you know unable to continue because they smell just like you know my friend's house down the street when I was 5 or. Whatever it is and you're just trying to figure out and you're right? It's sort of a concatenation of all these things they do in their house. You know it's not just that they have yeah I don't know woodbeam ceilings which I'm sure is part of it but that they clean at a certain rate and they cook so often and they open the windows and they don't open the windows they have mold starting or they don't have mold starting.
54:11.00
talknerdy
Yeah.
54:23.57
talknerdy
Yeah, are their pets or yeah, yeah.
54:25.96
Jude Stewart
It's just their whole life. Yeah, yeah, they have a dog exactly or something. Um, but yeah that it can be real shows stopper.
54:31.50
talknerdy
Oh serious. It's like intense sometimes you go to people's houses and you're like Wow you do not notice that it smells like this do you You can't smell it can. Yeah um, no, it's horrible. It's yeah, it's horrible I.
54:39.85
Jude Stewart
May I ask you a question is it fun for you to be a super smeller or is that sort of bombarding. Oh yeah.
54:49.53
talknerdy
Ah, very often. Wish I couldn't smell the things that I smell because you know I think when we smell pleasant things. Great. But we're often confronted with things that are are less pleasant and even pleasant things aren't always pleasant to me like I might buy a new candle that in the store smells really good. Um, and then when I light it. It's so overwhelming and strong that I have to put it out because it's too like even the good smell is too intense. Um, that's definitely happened to me a handful of times but more often than not. It's it's weird things like refrigerator smells I have to be really neurotic about.
55:12.74
Jude Stewart
Um.
55:23.64
talknerdy
Leftovers and about sealing things in the refrigerator because it will turn my appetite for a food if I if it has too strong a smell. Yeah like if something has too strong a smell before it's cooked and then I cook it. It's sometimes not.
55:31.70
Jude Stewart
Oh like forever. Yeah yeah.
55:41.20
talknerdy
Not transformed enough like the memory is too present and it actually makes it makes me lose my appetite for it and that's a huge bummer.
55:43.64
Jude Stewart
Um, yeah, yeah, oh gosh I'm sorry I feel for you I know that sometimes ah when women become pregnant I wanted when I was pregnant I wanted to be a supermiller because I'm not in normal life and. I did have this incredible moment of going into a restaurant I was really hungry because you know pregnant very hungry and ah, someone's steak came out from the kitchen and I thought maybe it was my steak and it was like I smelled it from across.
56:03.51
talknerdy
Yeah.
56:12.12
Jude Stewart
The room and it was like you know like this just a highly punched up kind of as if you know like cartoon smell lines are reaching me from the steak but ah, that was my only instance of feeling like I was a super smeller and it you know it was awesome, but it was brief.
56:23.15
talknerdy
Really, how much do you think that the experience of so I've never been pregnant and I don't plan to be pregnant but a lot of my friends have kids and I'm curious how much of that sort of first trimester nausea morning sickness experience. How much I wonder how much smell contributes to that I have a friend right now who's pregnant who told me the other day. She's like I almost threw up at whole foods like it was rough like I had to get out of there. Um, and I wonder how much of it is because little things trigger that you know that weakness in their in their guts.
56:49.84
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah.
56:59.32
Jude Stewart
Yeah, and I I'm often told I remember when I felt that way you're you're supposed to eat a little something it settles your stomach and and it and it works but like imagine feeling nauseated then you're like I'd love to shout down on some graham crackers likes not not what you think you should be doing but um.
57:01.43
talknerdy
Um, just.
57:14.93
talknerdy
Right? right? Oh gosh. Yeah, that sounds insurmountable to me. There are many reasons I don't want to be pregnant. But now that I'm thinking about what it would be like with my super smelling ability. Although.
57:18.29
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah, it's ah it could be a thing that's for sure.
57:31.54
talknerdy
Hell maybe I would become a non-smeller. Maybe I would just be like whoa everything is dead to me This is amazing and I think ah the grass is often greener for sure. Um, so I've got to know from you Personally, what are your smells If you you know if you're out and you're buying a scented candle if you are you know? ah on a walk if if you're.
57:36.45
Jude Stewart
But.
57:51.44
talknerdy
Purchasing a perfume for yourself or a lotion. Do you go for the things that are more like floral. Do you go for the things that are like baked goods like what do you want your house to smell like what do you want to smell like.
57:57.78
Jude Stewart
Yeah, well I think I I think I want to smell like a sexy pencil I've discovered but I was not a perfumed person before this and um.
58:03.96
talknerdy
Okay, hello.
58:11.85
Jude Stewart
You know and I felt a little like I'm not a supergirly girl and so I thought ok you know I have some skin issues and things so I was sort of always like a little bit standoffish with perfume but you can't really write a book about smell and not get into it with that question and um.
58:19.88
talknerdy
So.
58:26.45
Jude Stewart
You know when I started sitting down with my friends who did wear perfume I was really surprised at the things that interested me as smells like I wanted this just like weird. You know I wanted to like smell like trouble. You know so this like smoky and like resinous and you know, kind of. Unplaceable and just really weird smells So The the perfume I'm enjoying a lot right now that's probably my go to is called Molecule five and it's by um, eccentrics molecules and it's ah it's a totally invented molecule from the Lab. It's called Casmarant It's the name and ah and it's sort of.
58:50.16
talknerdy
E. No.
59:00.67
Jude Stewart
Feel like you're sort of smelling a lily and you're smelling a fire and you're smelling some unplaceable something else and you know it is none of those things. It is none of those things. There's none of that in it. So I love the the kind of unplaceability of that. Um.
59:10.35
talknerdy
Now.
59:16.91
Jude Stewart
I Also really enjoyed smelling um pipe tobacco and ah you know I sat with these smells for days and you know you would get tired of all of them eventually. But um pipe tobacco I never got tired of and just maybe because of the connotations of you know like it's sweet without being cloying. There's a lot more variation in it then you realize.
59:19.15
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
59:36.51
Jude Stewart
Um, you know it connotes like libraries and you know I don't know men reading big leather-bound books and stuff and yeah and it was introduced to be my good friend and you know he was a pipe smoker and we used to hang out on the ah.
59:39.10
talknerdy
Leather. Yeah yeah.
59:49.62
Jude Stewart
The pandemic kind of hang on the on the terrace where we were six feet apart and he would just sort of slidethe the new tobacco across and we'd smell it and um, you know so I think it you know, reminded me of those times together and so I I could always smell some pipe tobacco and.
59:52.15
talknerdy
Yeah.
01:00:02.75
talknerdy
I love that yeah I got weirdly into crafting during the pandemic and and you know because lots of free time and needed to do something somewhat productive and I don't know experiential and and ah tried my hand at a million different crafts. But I really do like making. Um, like I make candles I make soap I make bath bombs like make a big part of that is like what are the essential oils and what are the smells and how am I going to mix them together and make them work and I I definitely find that one of my biggest crowd pleasers is the sort of tobacco leather. Sandalwood black pepper like those kinds of mixes this deep smoky but with a touch of sweetness and maybe a touch of spice that people really tend to like that I myself love things that smell like I could eat them like like baked goods I love things that smell like.
01:00:45.50
Jude Stewart
Who.
01:00:53.50
Jude Stewart
Oh yeah.
01:00:56.61
talknerdy
And a men and vanilla and sugar. Yeah, it's weird and and so and some of my perfumes go along that that kind of line but I think probably my most interesting perfume that I have is one that I did buy in Paris um, and it was called I'm trying to remember something like piment boulon and it's it's pepper. It smells like you've. Freshly chopped bell peppers. It's the yumiest. Yeah, it's like the weirdest like you don't usually see that in a perfume but whenever I wear it people are like oh my god that smells so fresh and so good and and every time I kind of.
01:01:17.70
Jude Stewart
Oh wow, that's lovely.
01:01:33.10
talknerdy
You know I I save it for special occasions and and stuff. But every time I spray it I'm like oh I love this and it's such a weird unique vibe for a perfume.
01:01:41.40
Jude Stewart
I think the um I'm not my book is not necessarily all about the molecules. But there's this molecule pureozines is a category of molecules and it's really associated with Bell Peppers and so maybe that's what you're smelling us in pirazines they often. Ah, they come up in ah in.
01:01:48.48
talknerdy
E a.
01:01:59.28
Jude Stewart
Wine too When wine is um, kind of in the process of maturation sometimes at the middle state. It'll give off that pirozine smell and so somalilias like kind of smell for the bell pepper to see if you know was this a late ah late Harvest or not quite the late Harvest Um, which is interesting but.
01:02:01.40
talknerdy
Mm.
01:02:10.84
talknerdy
Ah, it's It's funny and he.
01:02:15.97
Jude Stewart
Yeah, it's interesting to think about smells like yeah on your body versus smells that you want to like hang out in like in a bath bomb that sort of ends up being a smell of your body but it's sort of a space you can hang out in I think I would apply a different logic to like you know? yeah the smell I want to hang out inside. Um like.
01:02:24.99
talknerdy
Yeah.
01:02:33.70
Jude Stewart
And don't want to smell like pipe tobacco but you know it does have that quality of literally. Ah they refer to the tin note which is what it smells like before you've smoked it and then the room note which is the smell it leaves in the room and I do love hanging out in that space. Even if I personally don't want to smell like it and you know I.
01:02:46.99
talknerdy
Right.
01:02:50.19
Jude Stewart
I Love smelling big goods like I'm all about that if I could eat them. You know.
01:02:52.29
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, definitely have had people tell me that before they're like oh it smells like cake but there's no cake. It's so sad you know like why would you do that to yourself and I'm like I don't know I don't know I want my house to smell like cake. Even if yeah.
01:03:06.97
Jude Stewart
You're like it could be like a trick you know here's the smell and here's the cake then you just won to him you know.
01:03:11.97
talknerdy
Ah I Often Wonder if I would be you know in another life if I could have trained as a somalia and if I would have been good at it. But the funny thing here's the rub I Hate alcohol I think it's disgusting. Which sort of is unsurprising and I think the truth is a good somalia is not like getting drunk every time they go to work. There's tasting things and spitting them back out. Um, which to me is a little bit more appealing than actually swallowing um the different.
01:03:28.17
Jude Stewart
It's true.
01:03:41.72
talknerdy
You know alcohols. But yeah I don't think I would ever enjoy my job because I don't like alcohol and I don't like alcohol culture and I don't like the way alcohol tastes. But I wonder if I would be good at it.
01:03:50.80
Jude Stewart
Yeah, well you know and then that's the thing that it's interesting to think about I don't know why Somalia's got the the lock on this. But for whatever reason you know we are ready to think about wine in this very wordy and thoughtful way and there's some other things we're willing to think about like cheese as you mentioned or a perfume you know, um.
01:04:06.70
talknerdy
Step an in.
01:04:09.70
Jude Stewart
But um, you know I wrote a chapter about ah about Cannabis and you know we're not sort of prepared to take that kind of fancy appellation. You know that we don't want to talk that weight necessarily about Cannabis but you can absolutely talk about that You know talk about Cannabis and it smells that way. Yeah.
01:04:13.15
talknerdy
E.
01:04:23.58
talknerdy
Oh I think some I think some shops here in L A definitely do you know they definitely have the yeah.
01:04:29.50
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah, well and what feels a little weird you know talking in that way but it really gets you closer to what what you're um, appreciating and what you're going for and you know recognize the differences in things and so part of me was like let's just stop worrying about being snobs and just you know, um, like. Like apply that kind of thoughtfulness and that that way of verbalizing and getting closer to things you know to anything doesn't have to be expensive wine like I made a point of not writing about expensive wine I think my my bottle that I examined really closely was like a $20 thing so because I didn't want to go there. Also it could not afford to go there. But.
01:04:58.81
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, yeah I mean it's' it's True. You see movements even like there's like olive oil movements and you know I've had friends who want to go to napa and I'm like I wouldn't have any fun and they're like you could do like an olive oil tasting and I'm like oh yeah, they do that. Now. That's you know, sort of for the non-driners. Um, and there are little kind of pockets of movements towards having that more I guess Mindfulness Really,, That's what that is's That's what is taught in sort of mindful eating courses and mindful eating Meditations is. Sitting there and really noticing the smells the taste the textures really experiencing your food and not just eating mindlessly and sort of being like oh God I Know it's like a blur like driving home last night I don't remember it happening. Oh What did I eat in. Ah um.
01:05:46.63
Jude Stewart
yeah yeah I mean maybe it's just a lot of junk. Food is kind of amped up for you to eat it and notice it even when you're not noticing. You know that it's like really super salty or you know all the flavors are really dialed up to 11 because we're sort of chopping on it as we drive down the 4 or 5 or whatever.
01:06:03.35
talknerdy
Right.
01:06:05.83
Jude Stewart
Ah, you know and the opposite of that is you know food that you have to kind of think about or an experience you have to you know, get a little more closer to and fine tune to and I guess like I would like there to be more space for that and smell is a thing that opened up you know that possibility for Me. And another thing I Love about smell is that just sort of resistant to capitalism like it's everywhere and you you can. It's as free as the air you can smell anything and just and just pay attention to it and that's that's nice.
01:06:29.54
talknerdy
Ah, right? you wrote in your books already to keep you because I know we need to wrap up soon. But you did write in your book about attempts to sort of trademark smells right? like like how you know capitalists gom be capitalists right? and they're going to try to apply.
01:06:45.99
Jude Stewart
Um.
01:06:49.54
talknerdy
Principles of like moneymaking even to something as freely available as ah as a cent molecule and how did that go for them. Yeah.
01:06:55.18
Jude Stewart
Ah, well it it is possible to trademark a smell. There are not many. Um so I wanted to write about Plato because I wanted to do a smell that was you know, evocative of childhood and the whole thing and and then the really surprising thing to discover straight away is that that smell is trademarked and um.
01:07:11.71
talknerdy
Tell us so weird.
01:07:14.18
Jude Stewart
Like all right um and then so it it begs the question of like Well what's the difference between a patent and a trademark and um, a patent has to do with a product's functionality like whether or not it does the thing you bought it to do and so trademarks have to do with non-functionality they have to do with all those intangibles.
01:07:19.21
talknerdy
You know.
01:07:32.87
Jude Stewart
Knowing that you got the real thing. Um, so it's the real playdoh. So um, you know I thought that was a sort of interesting distinction and also of course then I ran down the rabbit holes like trying to find all the trademark smells of which there are like surpassingly few but Playto is by far the biggest I mean a couple um audio.
01:07:50.73
talknerdy
That's so strange.
01:07:52.11
Jude Stewart
Ah, yeah, couple smell signatures from like I think there's ah the verizon it might be or it's a um, one of the um, the mobile stores has has a signature smell and it's like flagship stores better than that. It was like ucailles that smell like you know pineapple or.
01:08:04.38
talknerdy
Huh.
01:08:08.66
Jude Stewart
Like highly specific flipfl flops that had a particular smell which strangely my book editor had owned those and she's like oh I Love those smelly flip-flops I'm like they're trademarked. But yeah, so it's ah so yeah.
01:08:18.60
talknerdy
Ah, are they isn't that weird plasticy smell that we love like like you know those plastic wallets or like packaging that that weird I don't know how to describe it. It's very petroleum based but we love that smell. Yeah, right right.
01:08:27.10
Jude Stewart
Yeah, yeah, well,, that's more like off-gassing you know, just straight up plastic being plastic but but yeah, no, there was I guess there were I never encountered these but these. Flip up that she owned they smelled like coconut or something and it would somehow waft up from your feet and you would like get a little whiff of it as you were walking down you know Park Avenue or whatever. Um, so it was like so you knew had the the true X Y Z Brand Flip Flop. Um.
01:08:51.80
talknerdy
In.
01:08:53.46
Jude Stewart
But yeah I thought it was really interesting to think about that that the smell is this combination of what Plato really is which is you know it's ah it's a dough you can make at home. But then it's got a few extra just additives that give it that signature. This is the real playdoh which you know probably ah any fragrance chemist with any skills could create. And actual you know Plato smell at home and as long as they didn't smell it or it sell it. They could enjoy it. But ah yeah, it's funny to think that that's like the reality is engineered in that way but ah quite a few smells are are created and you know consistently you know.
01:09:14.10
talknerdy
Right? and knock off. Yeah yeah.
01:09:28.43
Jude Stewart
Put forth in a very specific formula and.
01:09:29.56
talknerdy
Yeah I think about like natural gas. How people say you know it doesn't actually have a smell they add a smell to it so you can smell it if it's leaking in your house like that's not actually what natural gas smells like and like oh weird. Okay.
01:09:36.31
Jude Stewart
Yeah, right? and all your lotions and stuff like sometimes they you know they might have a bad natural smell and then they remove that natural smell and add a nice smell and even even unscented products are often like. They've they're sort of edited versions of Reality. They've taken out some unpleasant, naturally occurring smell and and sort of rendered it very Neutral. You know that? yeah kind of yeah yeah.
01:09:58.55
talknerdy
Weird like they've scented it to be unsented I Love that? Yeah with that that idea of like emptiness of smell I was actually talking with a friend about this recently and we we have this conversation a lot. It was such a weird thing where he often talks about something smelling empty.
01:10:16.41
Jude Stewart
Moon.
01:10:17.97
talknerdy
And I don't know what he means by it and the only thing I can imagine when he starts to describe it is that he's talking about ozone the smell of ozone which does have a very particular smell which I could see one might describe as being an empty smell. Um, but it's such a strange like you like you talked about earlier like we don't have language for a lot of these things.
01:10:38.28
Jude Stewart
Yeah, you, you guys should sit down and try to work that out because that that is I mean maybe no smells are empty for you because you have the super smeller status and perhaps for him. It's not.. It's funny. There was this trend in perfumes and not too long ago of sort of barely their smells and so the idea was that it was just a. Like you were supposed to smell like yourself but with a slightly edited you know, kind of I don't know rounding up on your sexiness factor. It was like very very slight almost not their perfumes. Um and another another one that I tried was ah one of these invented molecules that I wrote about in the book called Isoe Super. And it is that kind of smell like you put it on and you're just sort of maddened By.. It's not almost just smells like you but not quite.. It's a little more like yeah, it's unplaceable in this way that is is fascinating makes you notice the emptiness of it So I don't know get some my series super and see what he says.
01:11:23.12
talknerdy
Right.
01:11:29.85
talknerdy
Ah, yeah, seriously see if that if that's like that's it. That's the smell. Um, yeah, it's it comes up a lot this is going to be the weirdest thing I don't know if I want to even include this in the show but whatever we'll see how it goes there are certain trees.
01:11:36.21
Jude Stewart
This will.
01:11:46.56
Jude Stewart
Um, oh I know what you're going to say Kara yeah.
01:11:48.34
talknerdy
Caughtud I Carefully wrote there's certain trees when you're taking a walk that smell like semen Yeah, like the semen trees and that's where it comes from. It's like the semen smell to this person smells quite empty and I'm like no it does. Ah.
01:12:01.20
Jude Stewart
Yeah, oh my God That's so it it smells like the opposite of empty to me but maybe okay now we really can't put this in but maybe he feels emptyed when he smells it.
01:12:06.64
talknerdy
I agree. Ah.
01:12:14.58
Jude Stewart
Which is like good for him I mean you know I guess I might want to hang out that smell all day long if that's what it meant? Yeah oh my god.
01:12:19.96
talknerdy
Ah, weird. It's so weird. But yeah, why is seamen have such a very particular smell and why do some trees smell like semen these are the great mysteries of the world. Ah.
01:12:29.57
Jude Stewart
To be continued the next episode.
01:12:34.10
talknerdy
Like so jude I have to ask you before I close all my episodes by asking my guest the same 2 questions so I have to steal you for at least a couple more minutes but but is there anything we didn't discuss anything that's in the book that you're like oh god why didn't we even talk about that or like I don't know something that we didn't go there that you be remiss that we didn't.
01:12:38.19
Jude Stewart
Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. That's fine.
01:12:50.40
Jude Stewart
No I think I think this was marvelous I really enjoyed I Love that you could get. You can get really detailed and ah you know I did feel like I talked nerdy. You know so that's good. No I feel like I feel very satisfied in that score. Yeah.
01:12:53.45
talknerdy
Okay.
01:12:58.76
talknerdy
Oh yeah, good I'm glad. Okay, so here we go and this is gonna be great because this is like a weird left turn from everything we've been talking about so far. Um, always super curious about all the really thoughtful and brilliant people that um, I'm I'm lucky enough to sit down with on the show. Um. 2 big ah big picture questions like really big picture. So I want you to answer them contextually and whatever is meaningful to you right now. So this could be very personal. It could be more global. It could be cosmic. You know whatever context makes sense to you. The first question. The bummer question. We'll get it. We'll get it over with first. Is when you think about the future in whatever context is relevant to you? Um, what is the thing that's keeping you up the most at night where are you legitimately concerned? Pessimistic maybe you're cynical worried. You know what's gnawing away at you and then on the flip side of that so we can end on a lighter note. Where are you finding your optimism these days. What are you looking forward to in a genuine authentic. You know, not a lip service way but like truly you know you're you're hopeful for.
01:14:03.23
Jude Stewart
Ah, okay, so definitely with the the bummer. It's climate change. Um and I feel I'm not original and saying that on a science show. But ah, you know, not at all.
01:14:12.41
talknerdy
But not at all, but that's okay because I think it It's an important point that like literally everybody talks about climate change. It's meaningful.
01:14:19.81
Jude Stewart
Climate change. Yeah well and I mean in the context and connection to this book I guess one of the smells I was unable to encounter in person was the smell of melting permafrost and I believe there's actually an article in the new yorker this week about the smell of that smell. And the whole point of melting permitros is it should be frozen and it should have no smell and when you're smelling it at all. It's because it's leaking gases so much carbon is tied up in the permafrost and there are diseases that we have gotten rid of that are. Ready to come back out from the middle ages and roar their way from Siberia into the world. So ah, you know that the smell of permafrost melting um was something that I um, you know I i. Watched a couple of videos of people who were arctic scientists and they were all describing it and so I was able to sort of triangulate like this is what it must smell like but I think I would find it almost unbearable to smell it in real life knowing what I know about it. Yeah, and so but what makes me optimistic. Okay, um I would say I have been very.
01:15:17.40
talknerdy
Yeah, oof.
01:15:26.85
Jude Stewart
Lucky in the pandemic to not be um, you know, no one I I Love has died from it knock on wood. Um, and I've been mostly unscathed by the experience. Um, even though I know I'll be changed by it and I think that um you know there's a lot of there's so much negative that I could. Say about it. But what I would say that's positive is that I think it was very character forming you know I didn't plan on writing a book about smell during this extraordinary time and ah and then to find out that the pandemic was marked by a loss of smell was even a weirder bonus but you know it made.
01:15:58.55
talknerdy
Right.
01:16:03.94
Jude Stewart
Simple pleasure so much more satisfying and so much closer at hand. Um, and ah you know I have this ability to have like literally just very small things will blown my skirt up you know because. Because of like how how it kind of clamped down on our senses and clamped down on all the things we think we wanted to do that constituted fun. And yeah I miss going and doing all those things too. But I'm starting to do those things again cautiously and um and but at the same time I'm trying to hold on to just like. Being satisfied with small pleasures and and the here and now and um I don't want I ever. Let go of that and I've tried to narrate that in my life and um, you know I think it's just created a richness about every day. It just makes me more more aware of the everyday nature of of living too.
01:16:48.13
talknerdy
Yeah, Absolutely absolutely gosh. Well Jude This has been such a I don't know such a fun exchange but also a really informative one a challenging one and hopefully um for everyone listening they've been really reflecting and and thinking in ah in a deeper way in a more mindful way about. This sense that I I do think we very often take for Granted. So Thank you for enlightening us and and also for doing all of the the legwork to put out this beautiful book. Ah, it's revelations in air a guidebook to smell. Thank you so much for it for being here and for sharing it with us.
01:17:23.53
Jude Stewart
Oh thanks for having with me. This is such a fun conversation.
01:17:27.38
talknerdy
And everybody listening. Thank you for coming back week after week I'm really looking forward to the next time we all get together to talk nerdy.
