I baked bread of all kinds - white, whole wheat, multi-grain, sourdough, pumpernickel, sally lunn, even an all-rye flour bread (very little gluten in rye, and I didn't add any gluten flour to that recipe, which means it didn't rise much at all, so it was very, very dense, but extremely hearty). I loved it all fresh from the oven, drenched in margarine (which the anti-cholesterol propaganda led me to believe was far "healthier" than real butter ), or made into sandwiches with thick slices of bread, and tiny bits of meat or cheese (because meat and cheese were BAD for you, and bread was GOOD for you). What I loved most about it though was the smell of the fresh baked bread.


A friend gave me a recipe for soft pretzels that tasted very much like Auntie Anne's, and I still feel much nostalgia for that smell when I pass by an Auntie Anne's. When it comes to the smell of those pretzels though, the wheat flour has little to do with it - it's primarily the scent combination of yeast, salt, brown sugar, and baking soda that sparks that nostalgia.



As with nearly all flour based products, the flour itself is nearly flavorless (except for a vague, bland, might-as-well-be-cardboard taste). It's all the things we add to the flour to make the finished product that give breads and other flour based products their distinctive scent and flavor. Combine that with the fact that our olfactory senses are as much involved with how we perceive taste as our taste buds are - well, no wonder the smell of Auntie Anne's can still make my mouth water. Sometimes I'm slightly tempted to stop and buy a pretzel... then I remember it's really not the flavor that was so good, it's mostly the scent of it (which I'm already enjoying), and walk on by.