The Heavenly Smells Of Paris

Hemmingway described Paris being a movable feast.  Certainly, it is with all the beautiful sights,  but also a tantalizing olfactory feast for your nose!

Because of recent confinements, when I couldn’t go around as freely as before,  I started to be more nostalgic of some of the marvelous smells of Paris.

I don’t go anywhere these days without my mask, even if vaccinated, which yes does interfere with smells,  but with Covid,  besides risking your life you risk losing your precious sense of taste and smell, anosmia.

The memory of smells by the way is recorded and immortalized in our limbic system that houses the hippocampus and amygdala, where emotions are processed and memories stored.   It is the most primitive part of our brain and I would say the most powerful evocation of memories associated with smells.

Sure there are other triggers, like sounds and sights that bring about reminiscing but smells have a powerful direct line to whatever event or place that they jar us into recalling.

I am not up and out so early in the morning except to catch an early morning flight or train, but the heavenly smell of baguettes and viennoiseries drifting out of the boulangeries is something to look forward to!

Viennoiseries are all the morning pastries you will find at any bakery.  Croissants, plain or stuffed with almond or praline cream, pain au chocolate, pain aux raisins, swirls of sweet dough, filled with various fillings called escargots, and the crunchy flaky chausson aux pommes, (puff pastry filled with apples).

They all perfume the air with heavenly notes of vanilla, almonds, chocolate and apples!  To my nose, the fabulous smell of buttery fresh croissants is easily my favorite.

Besides croissants, my favorite yeast dough pastries are the slightly sweet brioches!  I especially love the brioches feuillietes, some studded with red pralines or orange peel!

Just as puff pastry as many layers, brioche dough is treated in the same manner.  The huge puffed-up dome can be so big in drapes over the edge made extra crunchy with a sprinkle of sugar.

The pains aux rasins ooze out rich vanilla cream odors and the les pains aux chocolate smell of toasted chocolate.  The chausson aux pommes give off delicious smells of puff pastry and baked apples.

My favorite puff pastries are the succulent Galettes des Rois found everywhere here in January.

Depending on the will of the winds,  I can sometimes even get a whiff of them on my balcony from the boulangerie down the street.

Later on, especially in the late afternoon, the almost burnt bread crust smell roars out of the ovens going full speed for the crowds lining up for the nightly baguettes, one that might be saved for tomorrow’s breakfast, halved and slathered with butter and maybe some jam.

I have learned to ask for one “bien cuit” to assure I get a more golden brown, almost scorched and crustier crust.

I love to sniff the aroma of Gontron Cherrier’s squid ink baguette,  looking burnt and crusty with an unmistakable essence of the sea.

A little after 4:30 pm when the kiddies get out of school, the lines form again, this time for their pains aux chocolates, a must for any French child’s “gouter” or afterschool sweet snack.

The mamas come out nibbling on the family’s baguette, unable to resist the mouthwatering aromas till she arrives back home.

One of the most important indicators of a good baguette is the smell!  Whenever I buy a baguette from a new baker, I first look at the color of the interior and then smell!

Just the odor alone can tell me a lot about the type and quality of flour used, and the length of fermentation.

Baguettes with good organic flours with long fermentations and risings give off a more aged yeastiness than industrial ones.

The French love fine chocolates and have some of the world’s best chocolate makers in the world.  Just as the open the door, you will be engulfed in clouds of chocolate aromas.

In the tea salons of Jacques Genin, Pierre Hermé or Angelina’s, your nose will be hit with the unmistakable penetrating aroma of some of the best thick hot chocolate.

Autumn and winter, you are sure to find chestnuts roasting over hot coals at almost any busy corner, giving off tantalizing toasty aromas that are hard to resist on a blistery cold day.

Outdoor festivals and Christmas markets fill the air with vin chaud, a sweet red wine flavoured with cinnamon and cloves that always smells better than it tastes.

Huge molasses coloured Pain d’Epice cakes tempt you with irresistible gingerbread spices and honey.

Aromas of crepes made in front of you heavily smeared with Nutella and all sorts of jellies or ham and eggs are to be found everywhere in Paris.

One of the most exotic scented walks you can find in Paris is Passage Brady or going up Faubourg Saint-Denis past Gard du Nord, located in the 10th.   Both are highly redolent of pungent spices and curries of India and East Asia.

Walking down Avenue d”Ivry in the 13th, will plunge you into all the pleasant smells of Chinatown like the caramelized odor of lacquered ducks hanging in windows to the very pungent unpleasant ones from stacks of Durian fruit.

I enjoy the earthy and often very sharp aromas of the many fabulous French cheeses sold in fromageries or cheese shops, where they also sell the thickest of fresh creams and butter.

The third Thursday of November is the Fete du Beaujolais when it seems like all of Paris reeks of Beaujolais wine being generously poured from cafes and wine bars.

Passing by the open-air fish markets or shellfish stands with oyster shuckers found in front of many brasseries fills the air with enough brisk smells to mimic the seashore.

Come noon or late afternoon, it’s hard to miss the mouth-watering aromas of golden brown roasting chickens slowing turning on a spit dripping juices on the potatoes below in front of most butcher shops.  If you weren’t hungry before, you will be afterward!

Walking along the Quais of the Seine, I like the dank smells drifting up from the rushing currents of greenish waters.

 

Paris has perfume stores galore to sniff to your heart’s content the world’s most exquisites perfumes imaginable.   I love the niche perfumes you will find here too,  like the wonderfully sensuous ones created by the lovely and talented Neela Vermeir.

Before the fire, you could count on the indescribable incense at Notre Dame burned at evening vespers that I loved to take in, as well as the soft scent of melting candles throughout the cathedral.

Walking in just about any of the myriad of old churches here, there is an indescribable odor of old stones.

Saint Merri on Rue Saint-Martin seems to me to give off the most of old church smells.

I miss the stale musty old smell of small rooms at the Louvre, currently closed due to Covid.  I don’t know if it comes from the creaking parquet floors who have been walked on by millions or not, but it takes me back in time.

Paris is lined with flower markets that spill out on the sidewalks all sorts of brightly coloured flowers, some intensely fragrant.

Mimosa this time of the year has taken prominence in flower shops buckets looking like fuzzy bright yellow marbles offering a delicate sweet perfume passing by.

Come May 1, May Day, the whole of Paris will be redolent with the sweet perfume of lily of the valley sold on every sidewalk.

Soon heavenly smelling wisteria will fill the air and delight the eyes here in draping canopies of purple blossoms.

Chestnut trees will soon be afire with frilly apricot and white flowers that have a very light musky scent.  Bees buzzing around gathering nectar and pollen will later make delicious dark flavored honey, a favorite of mine.

In June huge Magnolia blossoms can be found in parks here reminding me of the beloved state flower of Louisiana.

I adore the sensuous perfume of them so much I often wish I could snatch one off the branches, usually too tall for me to reach and a no-no in a public park!

Late May and June I love to go to the Roseries of Bagatelle, Jardin des Plantes and L’Hay Les Roses, just south of Paris.  Bagatelle and L’Hay are the largest and filled with just about every known roses in existence!

On my own little garden patch of Paris,  my lone little balcony rose, an old French native called Chartreuse de Parme gives off the most astonishing deep perfume that I find myself going out repeatedly just to sniff.

My balcony garden has limited space but is crammed with other sweet-smelling plants.  There is some honeysuckle, and a huge rose geranium just brushing against releases the sweetest of rosy fragrance.

My one lemon tree when in bloom offers glorious scents and the Mara des Bois strawberries give off the most fragrant strawberry scent ever!

The golden tulip blossoms are heady with coconut and vanilla and come dusk the brugmanias(angel trumpets) open with a wonderful enticing perfume.

Then there are fragrant herbs of mint, lemon verbena, tarragon, basil, rosemary and thyme that I use a lot in cooking.

Fortunately, I live near the extinct Petite Ceinture railway now thickly lined with Acacia trees that in April and May give off luscious perfumes of honey.

I will leave you with one last smell that is not at all heavenly,  but meaningful to me.  

  On Metro line 4, the odor released by hot tires against the rails is for me a direct and distinct association of Paris, dating back to the first time I came here and now it takes me directly back home!