# Anyone just spontaneously recall the taste or smell of certain foods, without cause?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 2, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158 "2005-11-02T20:37:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/1 "2005-11-02T20:37:34Z")
I tried to say “with or without” in the title, but it didn’t fit. Ah well.
I was just watching The Homestar Runner Halloween Potion-ma-jig: A Make-Your-Own-Decision-Venture. I was watching the first part starring Strong Bad dressed as Jambi, Strong Mad dressed as Gossamer, and The Cheat dressed as Toad. Without any warning, I recalled just how [OJ’s](http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2003/cereal/ojs.jpg)[Breakfast cereal](http://theimaginaryworld.com/tic758.jpg) tasted. (All the Vitamin C of A 4-Oz. Glass of Orange Juice!)
Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone has suddenly recalled a particular taste or smell from their past, and if anyone has any theories as to why.
[/Strong Bad]
[Get out of here, Nebulon! No one likes your style.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=291291)
[/Strong Bad]
😃 But really, the above link goes to a GQ thread, but I don’t want factual answers, I want WAGs, memories, partial answers, and people’s memories of this happening to them.
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### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/2 "2005-11-02T22:35:10Z")
In rare cases, migraineurs may experience gustatory hallucinations.
[http://www.migraine-aura.org/EN/Gustatory\_symptoms.html](http://www.migraine-aura.org/EN/Gustatory_symptoms.html)
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### Author:  [@John\_F](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_F)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2005, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/3 "2005-11-02T22:54:25Z")
I had this happen last week.
I suddenly had a total taste recall of my grandmother’s soup I have not had in about 25 years.
I have no idea how/why and it has not happened again…yet.
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/4 "2005-11-02T23:26:57Z")
Sushi rice.
If it’s been awhile since I had sushi I start to taste sushi rice (which I know is redundant) at odd times.
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### Author:  [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/5 "2005-11-03T04:00:46Z")
Now that I think about it, the fact is that the characters I described also apeared on my TV screen when Ojs where still around. Thus, it could have been due to nostalgia.
Is that a possible cause, **John**?
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### Author:  [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/6 "2005-11-03T05:26:42Z")
At odd times, for no reason I can see, I get this smell which reminds me of the instant mashed potatos we had in high school, 1960/65.
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### Author:  [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/7 "2005-11-03T06:39:00Z")
Sometimes I just remember the smell/taste of a woodfire.
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### Author:  [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/8 "2005-11-03T07:05:06Z")
Salsa. I can be eating something completely unrelated to salsa, or doing something completely unrelated to salsa, and my tastebuds report salsa to my brain.
That and sushi rice, oddly enough.
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### Author:  [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/9 "2005-11-03T07:49:39Z")
With me it’s McDonald’s pizza which sadly no longer exists. I loved it. Best, greatest, most wonderful. I still count it among my favourite foods despite the fact that it’s been gone for a long time. I really hate when it happens, too, because it reminds me of the fact that I can never ever have it again.
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### Author:  [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/10 "2005-11-03T10:28:15Z")
Seemingly out of nowhere, I often recall the taste of these old microwave “pizza burgers” some company such as President’s Choice used to put out when I was a child. My father made sure to get me just one every week when they went grocery shopping - no sooner was it taken out of the grocery bag than I had it in my clammy little hands to put in the microwave. I lived for those damn things. They were a strange concoction of cheese, tomato sauce, some unidentifiable pizza-type vegetables, possibly some kind of meat, somehow breaded and stuck in a kaiser bun.
Sadly, (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it… my gallstone suggests the latter) they stopped making these things.
I can still taste them. It didn’t quite taste like pizza. But it was so good.
Now I have to hunt them (or a reasonable facsimile) down.
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/11 "2005-11-03T11:28:22Z")
I’m not going to bother getting any cites (because I’m just a lazy old broad) but the sense of smell and taste are the ones most likely to evoke a _memory_ in our minds.
Visual memories will only bring up the visual, whereas recognising a smell or a taste will probably reveal a complete picture (visual. audio **and** olfactory) that accompanied your experience with that smell or taste in your deep, dark childhood. In other words, re-experiencing a particular smell that you got in your childhood can bring back a whole MOVIE of the events surrounding it.
Groovy, innit?? 😃
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/12 "2005-11-03T19:31:36Z")
I don’t get olfactory nostalgia often, but when I do it tends to be places, not foods. For example, I moved to Montana from southeast Missouri (well, not directly) and the smells associated with the outdoors are all different: Up here, there is no scent of green vegetation or wet black mud or very many kinds of insect life. One day, completely out of the blue and after I had been living here for a few years, all of the smells of ‘outdoors in Missouri’ came back to me. I could smell the trees and mud and I could almost see the dense forest and hear the junebugs tuning up for another long, warm evening.
It was very surprising.
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### Author:  [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/13 "2005-11-04T16:56:42Z")
Interesting stuff, guys. Btw, I stumbled upon [an older thread about smells and memories](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=277116).
P.S. I searched for the recipes mentioned here. Sorry, I found some interesting stuff at [http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/](http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/) , and [some memories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:McDonald%27s#Mc_Pizzas), but I could not find the recipe itself.
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### Author:  [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/14 "2005-11-04T18:37:16Z")
some sort of frozen pizza that we had a a kid–John’s Pizza, I think. It no longer exists, but I can still taste it.
Jello 1-2-3–the smell of the powder in the box.
The taste of chocolate mousse, pecan pie, cherry turnovers.
I don’t know why these all concern fatty carbs, but they do.
I get this quite often and it can and does sway my cooking choices.
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### Author:  [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-just-spontaneously-recall-the-taste-or-smell-of-certain-foods-without-cause/329158/15 "2005-11-05T01:22:10Z")
Funny you should mention it. This happened to me today and I thought, “Hey, I should start a thread on that.”
In the middle of my work day, for no apparent reason, I had the sudden smell and clear memory of a deli sandwich I used to have for lunch twenty years ago.
Wow, I’ve been eating at delis for twenty years…