Ladle?
I imagine that would only smell distinctive *post * use. 
I would guess that it was a sulphurey sort of eggy smell, and the vase was used in the process of making “Century Eggs”. fresh eggs are packed in a lye and straw mixture and preserved in that method.
Did I get it?
Regards
FML
cyanide
Can you at least say the vase is wicker, wood, clay, stone, or glass? At least we can guess something reasonable.
I think it was clay. I’ll reveal the answer tomorrow, as I have to write up the story that goes with it. Again, so far one person has got it and another has 95% got it.
So it’s Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s shoes?
Bacon.
Than plus salt.
It was a waist high, salt fired clay pot that smelled kind of like bacon.
Simply because of the reaction of the clay to the salt during firing.
Oddly colored? Multi colered? Glassy? Slightly pitted texture (like an orange peel)?
It is now tomorrow. (Well it is for me. I’m in India.)
This has bugged me all night. Gah. Stupid timezones.
Sorry Auto if this correction messes with the game. Actually, it was wood. About stomach height, convex in the center, with two joins laterally, banded with a darker wood in little pegs. Obviously sections of the same trunk cut apart to workable size then joined back together after rough carving. Finish was smooth, and hand polished wax. The smell was neither wood, nor wax.
This. It has to be this.
Are we embalming people with bacon now? Do we wrap the bodies with bacon like big rumakis? I’m sure there are baconphiles that would approve of being sent off this way but I would worry that if bacon becomes a rarity at some future date people may start unwrapping the bacon mummies to make their breakfasts.
I hate when these things get dragged out. Anyone feel like rereading the thread and looking for two answers that fit in the 100% and 95% right?
FWIW, I went to an exhibition of South American gold artifacts in London many years ago. One of the exhibits was a pair of mummified corpses - IIRC sacrificial victims. The whole room in which they were displayed smelt strongly of smoky bacon.
Mmmm…human rumakis. I like it!
I’ve already left strict instructions with my wife that I have two sticks of butter in each pocket and the rest of my body basted in “Sweet Baby Ray’s” before I go into the crematorium. I don’t suppose that a bacon head band or a salt pork bandelero would be too much to ask would it?
::And at this point the Living Will attorney starts questioning the “Sound Mind” clause at the beginning::
I’m still leaning towards cyanide. It is the most obvious indication from post #37 though I can’t explain post #38. It also suggests that post #14 was pretty close since cyanide is used in precious metal plating. Being made of wood does not preclude it from being electroplated by some processes. Also, if the vase in question was not treated properly, the potential for cyanide exposure would indeed make quite a story.
And the answer is…
drum-roll
C’mon Kareem…
Bacon!
Acid Lamp, nashitashii, and I found this to be highly amusing. We called the curator over to share our discovery, this wooden vase that smells of bacon.
“That’s strange,” he said. “It didn’t smell like this an hour ago.”
Bwuh? What kind of curator goes around smelling his exhibit? Anyway, Acid explained that the smell was probably the result of the smoking process done when the wood was shaped. No, the curator insisted that this bacon smell was new.
“Somebody is pulling a prank on me and put bacon in this vase.” We all started to crack up laughing, naturally. This drew the ire of the curator.
“Oh, so it was you three eh? You think it’s funny to mess with art!? Get out of my store!”
In between fits of laughter, we tried to explain how we did no such thing, but he insisted we leave or he would call the cops. In his anger he adopted a very stereotypical Chinglish accent.
“It smerr like bacon! Get out my store! Get out!!”
We left, laughing all the way home. Needless to say, ‘smerr like bacon’ is now ingrained fondly in our minds.
It has amazing lasting power as a joke as well. Any odd odor now that I encounter “smerr rike bacon!” and Nashiitashii dissolves into a mass of giggles.
For example:
Nashiitashii: Ugh, did you fart?
Me: Must be the dog, mine smerr rike bacon! 