The Smell and Memory Connection: Why specific foods trigger memories

​Kevin Fredericks of Kevonstage, a social media comedian, stole the spotlight last year when he protested the addition of Brussels sprouts and butternut squash to macaroni and cheese. The vegetable tip was aired on The Kitchen , a cooking show on the Food Network, to introduce a new mac and cheese recipe for Thanksgiving. The comedian made a plea to leave the vegetables out! People who commented on his video made their message clear: DO NOT alter this traditional Thanksgiving dish.

​As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, I am an advocate for adding vegetables to macaroni and cheese for Thanksgiving, but there is a missing piece to the puzzle. Macaroni and cheese was not on my family’s dinner table on Thanksgiving, so I have no emotional connection to it. On the other hand, if someone wanted to replace my favorite stuffing, I would probably fight back!

Video from Kevonstage regarding macaroni and cheese

​The smell of turkey and the taste of stuffing and mashed potatoes takes me back to my parent’s kitchen. It was the one time of the year I had a full American meal at home. I remember waking up early each year to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade as I waited for my mom to finish cooking. My parents were Vietnamese immigrants and never assimilated to cooking American food at home. Therefore, Thanksgiving consisted of frozen, pre-cooked turkey, instant mashed potatoes, packaged gravy, boxed stuffing, canned corn and peas, and a side of iceberg lettuce with bottled Italian dressing. I loved it, and I still do!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I prefer to eat it exactly the same way I did growing up. As a dietitian and a self-taught cook, I can probably cook each dish from scratch and make a healthy version for each of them. But it would not taste like Thanksgiving, and there is a scientific reason behind it.

Taste, Smell, and Flavor

​Together, taste and smell contribute to taste perception. You may think you “taste” your food with your tongue but, the truth is, the tongue is limited to identifying notes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami, known as the primary sensations of taste. To determine a flavor, you need your nose! About 80% of flavor comes from the smell of your food.

​Your sense of smell is called olfaction. Aromas from the food travel to your olfactory receptors which are located at the back of your nasal cavity. There are two pathways to these receptors: orthonasal (smelling) and retronasal (from the back of your throat as you chew, swallow, and exhale). Once the odors reach the receptors, signals are sent to your olfactory bulb and the brain for flavor identification.

​Flavor occurs once you combine all of the senses of taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight. Flavor is highly individualized which makes it a subjective critique in the food critic world. To me, the perfect apple is tart, firm, crunchy, and green while the perfect apple to someone else may be red, sweet, and slightly soft.

​The Olfaction Food Memory Connection

​The olfactory receptors end at the limbic system of the brain, specifically associated with emotions and memories. So by smelling and identifying flavors through olfaction, we can trigger specific feelings and memories that we previously associated those smells and flavors with. The more stimulated you were when you ate the food, the more vivid the food memories become. If you make pumpkin pie every year for your family, the memories of cooking on a cold fall day, eating, and sharing your pie will be more prominent every time you smell pumpkin pie. However, you may have little to no food memory attached to the chicken sandwich you mindlessly ate during a conference call last year.

Thanksgiving is a special holiday that happens once a year. Your family probably cooks the same traditional dishes, perhaps replicating recipes carried down from generations ago. These dishes may be expected every year by family and friends! To Kevin, it was offensive to see Brussels sprouts and butternut squash added to the macaroni and cheese for Thanksgiving but, if it were presented to him on any other day, perhaps he would try it.

​As a dietitian, there is an empathetic side to me that understands how sacred family meals and traditions are on this delightful holiday. I will not tell you to replace your turkey with a tofurkey or to swap out macaroni pasta with cauliflower. Just enjoy the food with your loved ones, and embrace both the old and new food memories to come!

Jane Pelcher, RDN
​ www.janethedietitian.com

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