Maggie Koerth’s clever Sept. 30 column on how smells shape our memories hit me hard for several reasons (“The scent of memories,” Strib Voices). First was my 40 years’ enjoyment of the “homey funk” from Northfield’s Malt-O-Meal (now Post) cereal plant, about half a mile as the scent flies from my house. Second were the memories of professor Venkatesh Murthy, quoted in Koerth’s piece as an expert, with whom I share olfactory memories from India. Like Murthy, I grew up in India and remember clearly the smell of jasmine, certainly among the world’s best.
An even sharper memory for me is the heady aroma of eucalyptus, then pervasive (and, alas, invasive) in the blessed hills of South India’s Western Ghats, where I lucked into spending many years at 7,000-feet altitude. More than 50 years later, that smell brings me close to tears.