a good read.
The universe smells
Harold McGee is a food legend. He brought food science from the lab onto cooks’ bookshelves and inspired a generation of chefs. Many’s the obscure food debate in the pre-Covid delicious. office that was settled with, “I’ll see what McGee says.” In his latest book, Nose Dive, McGee takes a leap into the osmocosm - the universe of smells. Susan Low sniffed him out for a chat
PORTRAIT: ELLIE SEKINE. PHOTOGRAPHS: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
Every wondered how onions can go from off-puttingly pungent in their raw state to sweetly enticing when cooked? Or why fruit smells so come-hither? Did you know that eating lots of fenugreek can change your body odour, or that terpenoids, the molecules that give cannabis its distinctive whiff, can also be found in citrus peel? These are just some of the subjects touched on by-the-by in Harold McGee’s latest 600-page tome, which reaches beyond the world of food and takes us through a history of the universe in smells. Like his other books, it mixes chemistry, physiology, psychology and biology, adds good dollops of humanity and humour, and seasons it all with an infectious sense of wonder.
McGee has been an authority on the science of what we cook and eat for more than 40 years.