Ooh Ooh, That Smell!
Travel Blog • David Farley • 02.10.09 | 3:31 PM ET
Periodically over the last few years, New Yorkers have had the sudden urge to eat pancakes. That’s because a mysterious maple syrup smell occasionally materialized in Manhattan, engulfing the island with a sweet and pleasant aroma and making everyone’s tummy grumble for pancakes. It also made people wonder if the smell was terrorist-related—and if the terrorists were trying to slowly turn Americans into obese eating beasts (unfortunately we’re doing that without any outside help).
Well, the mystery has been solved. It turns out, the smell was actually food-related. The culprit was a food processing plant in New Jersey that was omitting the scent of fenugreek.
It could be worse. There’s been a mysterious aroma in Tacoma (“the Aroma of Tacoma” they call it). That scent, however, had the opposite effect of the maple syrup mystery of Manhattan.
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David Farley
Ling 02.11.09 | 10:43 AM ET
This could actually work out well for a diner. They could spray this fenugreek thing around outside on the street every hour or so, and sell pancakes like hotcakes. :)
Pam Mandel 02.11.09 | 12:58 PM ET
I live north of Tacoma - it’s rare we get the aroma here, but I have had my nose full of that stuff and it’s - um - unpleasant. There’s a shipping terminal closer to our house that smells like molasses, if I remember correctly it’s for animal feed and in spite of the less than romantic destination, the scent of gingerbread cookies over a shipping yard is delicious indeed.