One memorable one of mine was in a little roadside restaurant where I stopped to eat with a friend while we were driving along the French Riviera years ago. A waiter walked by with his tray held high, carrying a plate that gave off the most delicious smell I'd experienced in a long time. It was lapin aux oignons...rabbit with onion. I ordered it, loved it and thereafter cooked it with love!

SharonCb

I had a cumin moment. When I was a young wife (very, very young wife) I kept trying to make chili and get that distinctive chili taste. I kept putting in more and more chili powder and that just did not do it.
One day I was at a friend's house and looking at and sniffing her spices. I picked up a jar of cumin (which I had never heard of) and opened it and Voila! THAT was the taste I was trying for. I fell in love at that moment, and cumin has been a favorite since then.

For a spice, freshly ground fenugreek.

For a dish, braised coniglio with wine and vegetables. When I lived in Italy I walked by a restaurant and that was the lunch special. Eveyone on the patio seemed to be eating it. Maybe it was so memorable because I was really hungry at the time. But I sat down and ordered some and thought it was one of the best things I have ever tasted.

I ended up working at the restaurant and this was one of their lunch specials. The rabbit was cut up in small pieces and sauteed in olive oil and garlic. When it was browned, white wine was added along with carrots, onions, fennel, sometimes tomatoes - it just depended on what was fresh that day. It was cooked until the wine was reduced to a glaze and the veggies were tender. Sometimes, if tomatoes had not been added, heavy cream was poured in the last 20 minutes of cooking. The dish was cooked in an iron pot with a cover. It was set into a stone wood burning oven that was built into the outside wall of the restaurant.

The smells coming from the stone oven really drew people in. Prior to the lunch cooking began, bread was baked in the oven early in the day.

I recall, as if it was yesterday, the first time I smelled freshly ground coffee beans. To this day I love the smell of those beans way more than the end product.

Chase - that's interesting that you said coffee. I can't stand the taste of coffee but love the smell of freshly ground beans. There is also a coffee roaster near a bakery I shop at. Sometimes I stop in there and buy a small quantity of beans that were roasted that day - just to take home and smell.

Well, not quite eating ... we were vacationing in southern Colorado one October. Windows down, enjoying cool air. I hung my head out the window and started to sniff. Really sniff! Told hubs I smelled roasting chili peppers! He didn't believe me. Down the road, around a curve and presto! A bunch of guys in front of a general store tending to a 6 ft tall mesh wheel filled with Hatch chilis over an open flame. Oh what a wonderful smell! What a wonderful sight! Maybe we could take that trip again! This year, maybe??

I've got one right now...the aroma of the pork shoulder slowly roasting in the rotisserie...Jeepers, it's making me hungry!

O.k., I know, not exactly what we were talking about. :D

It's difficult for me to come up with specific experiences. I have always been extremely aware/sensitive to aromas (and their less congenial cousins, odors.) Many of my most vivid childhood memories involve aromas and are invoked by them.

An odd thing about cooking aromas is that they can be offensive when you first encounter them, and later be pleasant, even delicious.

Asafoetida is an example. The first time I bought some, for an Indian recipe, I thought I might toss my cookies while opening it and transferring it to a spice jar. Yaaagggghhhh! :P

Now, when I perform the same operation, the aroma (while still being very pungent and not exactly floral) is associated with so many wonderful dishes that it smells almost delicious even on its own.

Bread in the oven...or recently out.
many years ago, my mother gave me the hint that if I had chatting with the neighbors instead of getting dinner going, to quickly toss some onions a clove or 2 of garlic and some peppers into the pan with a bit of olive oil....turn on the fan and waft that smell outside and people from miles around will gather licking their lips.
And when asked what you are cooking....just smile and say..."you'll see"....and then you can add chicken, beef, shrimp, pasta or eggplant.
Peppers and onions and garlic....can't be beat.

When I was about 10 my mother allowed me to take a big, empty metal Crisco can and go raspberry picking with my friends down the old logging road about a mile away from our home.

It took hours to fill our cans because we were picking from wild bushes in the woods and you really had to hunt for them. We came home tired, but happy, with stained red fingers and lots of scratches on our arms and legs.

These days there are several nearby farms that cultivate raspberries where I can pick my own. When I lean into those bushes and close my eyes I am transported back in time. I'm now a grandmother, but when I smell fresh raspberries I am a 10-yr old on a mountainside. The scent of raspberries and summer are inseparable to me.

I have 3 moments:

1. When I was a child, the smell of coffee brewing and cigarette smoke meant Dad was up and I could sneak out to the kitchen for some quality time.

2. I was 7. The smell of loin pork chops broiling. My mother used seasoned Accent and broiled them. They made my mouth water. I can still conjure that taste in my mind and mouth today. (Yes MSG and all)

3. I was 20 and discovered cilantro. To me the taste and smell say "FRESH!!!!!". I love buying fresh cialntro in January because it reminds me of the tastes of summer.

I guess for aroma, it would have to be achiote. Whenever I cook with it, I feel like I am back in the Yucatan, which is one of my favorite places. I also had the experience there of walking down roads in the evening where there were groves of orange trees that I could not see, but the sweet fragrance was overwhelming and wonderful. I noticed also that there were Four O'Clocks blooming in the ditches, and I mistakenly thought that the fragrance was coming from them, and so I would gather seeds from them. They only bloomed in the evening, and the orange blossoms only had the overwhelming fragrance in the evening, and so it was easy for me to get confused. Anyway, I planted the seeds when I got back to San Francisco and was a bit disappointed that the flowers I got had no fragrance, but at least they grew and bloomed. The next time I went back to Yucatan, I paid more attention and was able to identify the orange groves as the source of the fragrance. Now I have my own citrus trees, and I love the fragrance (sorry it's not an aroma, but close!).

Lars

Walking into a real honest to goodness bakery. I grew up outside Philyl and the bakeries were just awesome. We have nothing that even remotely compares to that here in NC!

Another is the slow roasting turkey on Thankesgiving morning!

And this isn't food related, but the smell of Old Spice, my dad wore it and when I smell it now, it gives me goosebumps!

My first trip to Florida. My husband chose a run-down little motel flat spat in the middle of an orange grove. My sinuses went crazy but that orange blossom smell lives with me to this day! I have a Myers lemon tree in the yard that sends me to the moon when it blooms! Now, it is semi-mature, and blooms year around. WONDERFUL!! Orange blossom honey--lovely! Lars, you stirred that memory that I take for granted. Thanks!

The turkey on Thanksgiving always brings back the best of memories: my mother getting up at five am to put the turkey in the oven.

bumblebeez - that is another great aroma moment for many!

I don't wait for Thanksgiving however. I make turkey and dressing many times a year. Last summer here in Minnesota the weather was like fall. I cooked a whole turkey four times between June and August. I enjoyed the turkey w/dressing and turkey rice soup that I froze. I'm growing celery this year just to have for the dishes I make with turkey.