Le Nez (The Nose) and Why We should Protect it.
I've been thinking about the nose. (NB: it has been a topic of controversy here in NoFla). (Getty Images) Sensing Scent When I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia. in my twenties, I was fresh off of a year of teaching in France. I took a job at a small Provençal restaurant on East Main St., across from the train station, in-between the University of Virginia campus and the downtown area. It was called Lavande . One diner who frequented the restaurant made a major sensorial impact on me. When I placed her plat principal (main course) before her, she would raise her hands over the dish as if to contain and direct the scent flowing from the steaming repast to her nostrils. She would meditate over the fumes, taking in the subtle smells from the mélange of herbs, garlic, olive oil, wine, and other varied ingredients prior to lifting a fork. It was an olfactory meditation, devoted to an engagement with multifarious messages traveling between the diner and her dish. I ...