Smells and Bells

While reading Diane Ackerman's Natural History of the Senses, I was stormed up inside my boyfriend's apartment. It was a snow day after all, so I decided that I had to make a cup of hot chocolate the "old fashioned" way: by heating up milk on the stove and pouring it over a mix of 100% pure cocoa powder, sugar, and a touch of vanilla extract. While adding my ingredients together my boyfriend's roommate said from another room "that smells like the real stuff".  Pre Ackerman I probably wouldn't have payed much attention to the comment, however reading about "the mute sense" has made me much more in tune with it. I was suddenly amazed by our abilities to smell and was puzzled by why we all (myself included) take this sense for granted. If you were to ask me three days ago if I thought that people could use smell alone to tell the difference between different types of cocoa mix (Swiss Miss, Hersey's, Nestle, or packet vs. hom...

The ritual I did with different kinds of fruits on the first day of class comes a "seder" for Tu B'Shvat ("The 15th of Sh'vat" - the Jewish New Year for the Trees).  I wrote a short description of this text in the Jewish food blog The Jew and the Carrot here: The Original Tu B’Shvat Seder: 'Pri Etz Hadar' According to what we've read in Diane Ackerman's Natural History of The Senses , everything we know about the world we live in is mediated to us through our senses.  But what in particular do are senses "tell" us that is so important to know? Our senses alert us to what is food, who would be a good mate, and predators that might be out to get us. Our senses give us pleasurable rewards presumably for what is good for us to smell, touch, taste, hear, and see. And we experience disgust or pain for things that are presumably bad for us. However, it's also possible that not everything that feels pleasurable to us is alwa...