What are your favorite or most comforting cooking smells?

Cooking Discussions
1

@Amandarama’s recent post inspired this thread, and I didn’t see any existing posts on the topic.*

We all have favorite smells, of course. Most are deeply intertwined with our childhood and/or other pleasant experiences, since our olfactory preferences are closely connected to our emotions and memories (same brain regions, actually).

For me, these come to mind:

  • onions (and or garlic) frying in butter
  • freshly brewed coffee
  • bacon
  • sautéed mushrooms
  • cookies baking in the oven
  • my PIC’s yuvetsi scenting the whole house with lamb and rosemary and garlic
  • my smoked pork shoulder finishing in the oven — the fennel seeds & smoky meat
  • potatoes au gratin
  • chicken noodle soup
  • roasting chicken and turkey
  • grilled cheese & tomato soup

ETA: fresh basil & cilantro, which technically aren’t cooking smells, but I always have to faceplant into a bunch of basil when I buy some :smiley:

*If there is one and I just suck at searching :grimacing:, plz correct me :pray: and simply merge.

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2

No particular order
Fresh baked bread
Sauteed garlic and ginger
Sauteed onions and garlic
Coffee
Bacon
Roasted fowl
Roasting meats

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3

I have a feeling there will be a lot of overlap :slight_smile:

Bacon, fresh bread, and sautéed onion in butter are classic comfort smells.

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4

Lemon anything
Ripe Grapefruit
Sangria
Rosemary
Vanilla extract
Basil pesto
Salmon on a cedar plank
Cardamom coffee
Fresh picked strawberries
Chai
Sunday gravy bubbling on the stove

…too many actually

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5

Maybe not… if you narrow it down to just cooking smells, which would exclude (I assume) sangria & ripe grapefruit, at the very least :slight_smile:

6

Is coffee cooked? I enjoy the aroma brewed, roasted and freshly ground-comforting.
A roasted ripe grapefruit is awesome
I made a fresh batch of Sangria today so it’s on my brain :smile:

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7

Rice. Especially calrose new crop (which, btw, is just hitting stores now). My god, I love that smell!

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8

Roasting chicken and turkey
roasting and grilled meats especially beef
tomato based pasta sauce
frying onions
baking bread
chicken soup
bacon
baking cookies especially chocolate chip
coffee
toast
baking potatoes
pickling vegetables

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9

I’ve never eaten the beans raw, and only had them on their own (roasted) covered in chocolate.

Plus it involves boiling hot water, so I would say yes, coffee is cooked.

10

Butter. Maybe browning butter, or butter baking in something.

@ricepad ; looking for some of that rice!

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11

Though I don’t like eating them (I dislike the texture of nearly all cooked fruit), the smell of baked apples is intoxicating. My Nana Pauline used to make them often and smelling something like that brings back pleasant memories of her.

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12

Apple pie
Roasted chicken
Freshly baked bread

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13

That reminds me — the smell of tangerines and mandarines will always remind me of xmas season in Germany. Also, mulled wine.

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14

I disagree that brewed is cooking. Fun idea for a thread tho.
My cardamom coffee is brewed.

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15

From what I can recall. Looking to get my sniffer back! 12 days out…

• (Brewing) Coffee
• Croutons
• Mushrooms sautéed in butter, garlic and sherry
• French Fries, Fried Chicken, Asian and Mexican food from outside
the restaurant they are being prepared
• Chocolate cookies—chocolate chip or chocolate crinkle

Just for grins…the ones that make me gag:
• cooked cabbage w/ or w/o corned beef and cabbage cooked in
pig’s blood, sorry, Brussels sprouts. I think it’s a cruciferous thing.

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16

i used to roast my own coffee beans and the aroma would permeate the entire house – in a good way. miss it. gave it up after the rise of premium roasters that started doing the beans to my liking (medium light roast).

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17

Toasting cinnamon raisin bread.
Oven Beef stew with a bay leaf (which herb my husband does NOT like to smell as it cooks).
Popcorn.
And many of those listed by others above, although when it comes to raw ingredients/herbs I’ll skip the basil and instead sniff dill.

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18

I’m a simple person. White Rice boiling and finishing on the stovetop.

Evokes so many warm comforting memories, more than just about food and eating.

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19

I love fresh dill, too. Really, most fresh herbs. Sage is pretty wonderful & intense, or fresh mint.

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20

Add me to the rice list…

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