Remembering Smell

Remembering Smell by Blodgett, Bonnie. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780618861880.

In November 2005, Bonnie Blodgett was whacked with a nasty cold. After a quick shot of a popular nasal spray up each nostril, the back of her nose was on fire. With that, Blodgett€”a professional garden writer devoted to the sensual pleasures of garden and kitchen€”was launched on a journey through the senses, the psyche, and the sciences. Her olfactory nerve was destroyed, perhaps forever. She had lost her sense of smell. Phantosmia€”a constant stench of €œevery disgusting thing you can think of tossed into a blender and pureed€€”is the first disorienting stage. It€™s the brain€™s attempt, as Blodgett vividly conveys, to compensate for loss by conjuring up a tortured facsimile. As the hallucinations fade and anosmia (no smell at all) moves in to take their place, Blodgett is beset by questions: Why are smell and mood hand-in-hand? How are smell disorders linked to other diseases? What is taste without flavor? Blodgett€™s provocative c