I'm rendering leaf lard in my crockpot.

[no_hypocrisy]

I recognize the smell/aroma all of a sudden. The last time I smelled it was when I was about 3 or 4. My parents hired a woman from The South and I'm certain she rendered lard although I didn't understand that's what she was doing.

It's funny. I can remember smells and tastes from as far back as the toddler and infant years. When I first tried soy milk, the first thought in my head was "Yech! Baby formula!" My mother confirmed that she fed me soy formula at 6 months when she could no longer breastfeed me.

[NCarolinawoman]

1. Aromas can really bring you back to a long ago place and time. Can be haunting, even.

Sometimes you can't even pin point it at first.

I remember taking summer courses at UNC Chapel Hill and the smell of some flowering bushes kept pulling at me. Then I finally remembered that was the same smell I was familiar with from my Grandmother's house as a child. Grandparents lived in Goldsboro,NC. (I grew up in northern NJ.)

Now I'm trying to remember the name of that flowering bush.

[Warpy]

2. Maybe what was then known in the south as "cape jessamine"

These days people call them what they are, a variety of gardenia. However, every garden in NC seemed to have at least one of them.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. The smell of unsalted butter always takes me back to my great-aunt Pauline's apartment in Queens

She died when I was 18.

[marzipanni]

4. The taste of slightly under ripe kiwi fruit reminds me of slightly under ripe wild raspberries

we used to pick on an island off the coast of Maine. Growing in a place where mornings were often foggy, even in August when we'd rent a cottage, the berries were a bit too firm and sour but I liked the taste anyway.

[msanthrope]

5. Holy crap---my nonni fried the Sunday meatballs in lard. I know the smell. nt