‘Food is memory’

I don’t mean to brag, but I have a few unusual qualities I am especially proud of.  For example, I think I have ESP because twice – yes, two times! – I guessed the New York Times Wordle word on the first try.

Then there is my unbelievable sense of smell. Put me side by side with any search and rescue dog and I will track down life amid the rubble. Hire me as a consultant for PSE&G and lickety-split, I will find the source of the neighborhood gas leak.

And speaking of my sense of smell, inhaling the aroma of food gives me so much pleasure that eating it is secondary. That’s why I can’t understand America’s obsession with diets.  If your sensory neurons resemble mine, then simply inhaling the smell of chocolate cake will satisfy you.  I guarantee your waistline will shrink.

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So imagine my distress when I lost my sense of smell before Rosh Hashanah. My nose and I were bereft.

Covid was not the culprit. Rather, a nasal spray, or walking pneumonia and its antibiotics, were the offenders. They robbed me and prevented me from inhaling the holiday.

My senses are in overdrive on Rosh Hashanah.  From the daily blast of the shofar in Elul to the actual 100 blasts on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, my ears are on alert.

If the holiday is early, my eyes search for the first leaves that change color, surely a harbinger of a New Year. This year, with the holiday so late, my eyes were already enjoying a collection of autumn colors. How could I ever think summer is my favorite season?  In fall, I feel like a character in an Impressionist painting.

I love the smooth texture of the apples my husband, Andy, and I picked in upstate New York before the holidays.  I love the bumpy feel of the variety of squashes we  harvested, which will either decorate the Sukkah or be roasted in the oven and eaten.

Andy Silver braids challah.

Oddly enough, my taste buds were still working. Thank goodness.

With 80% of my senses functioning, I know I shouldn’t complain about my nose taking a sabbatical.  Yet I couldn’t get past it. What could I do to maximize my enjoyment of the holiday?  Since food is memory, I would rely on that.

My kitchen had always been an oasis, but this year it was a desert.  To make soup, I simmered the chicken, tripled the parsley and dill, and hoped that the root vegetables would do a jig in the pot to create the longed-for holiday scent. Nothing happened. So I had to settle for the memory of my mother’s chicken soup from 50 years ago. The aroma wafted through each room of the small apartment I grew up in.  The neighbors could even smell Evelyn’s soup in the elevator!

I made applesauce from the five varieties of apples Andy and I picked.  The flame on the stove was low, allowing the apples to cook for a long time.  I was desperate to smell apple perfume, the sweet, fragrant aroma of autumn. Once again, nothing. So I just had to picture the mushed and smushed applesauce I used to make for our grandchildren when they were infants. It was their favorite food.  It was like a hug in a jar.

I drank tea with honey to chase away the germs, but no matter which herbal tea I tried, and how fancy and flavorful the honey, I smelled nothing.  So I transported myself to high tea in London, where the assorted teas came with tiny sandwiches, scones, and clotted cream.

My biggest disappointment was when Andy transformed our kitchen into a challah bakery.

“Did you start baking?” I asked. Then he pointed to the row of golden round challahs that had just come out of the oven.  The raisins, the honey, the poppy and sesame seeds, the love.  How could I have missed it? I would have to be content with the memory of the intoxicating aroma of his past challahs. At least I could look forward to the taste.

I felt like a character in a children’s book.  Bubbie with gray hair, blue eyes — and no nose! She missed Rosh Hashanah because she didn’t have a nose.

Later, he shows off the finished product.

The children would laugh at the idea, but I was getting concerned.  I read that loss of smell can be a sign of aging (as if I need a reminder), a sign of Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. I started to worry that the absence of smell might be my new normal, similar to what people suffering from long covid experience.

To be perfectly honest, though, it wasn’t just this problem that complicated Rosh Hashanah 5785.  The entire holiday was off, to put it mildly. My Israeli cousins in Kfar Saba sent greetings from a shelter. “We have confidence in our leaders and in the army,” they wrote in a WhatsApp chat, as missiles from Iran poured down and the Iron Dome protected them.

The war in the  north is escalating while the war in Gaza continues relentlessly. Who could have imagined that we would be commemorating the one-year anniversary of October 7 and that hostages would still be imprisoned and tortured, if they are even still  alive?

Closer to home, Rosh Hashanah and Election Day are just five weeks apart. Had they ever been this close?  The proximity is unsettling. I want to believe in the potential of a New Year, but the chaos of the upcoming election makes me uncomfortable.

So where am I, as the 10 Days of Awe begin, followed by the countdown to Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah?

And what about my nose?

I am hoping that by Sukkot, I can write a sequel to my “no-nose-Bubbie” children’s book.  In this new story, the sweet, citrusy smell of the etrog wakes up Bubbie’s nose. She captures that fragrance and puts it in a bottle, so that she can enjoy it all year. Bubbie and her nose live happily ever after.

For the New Year, may we all come to our senses and use them to create a better world.

Merrill Silver and her husband live in Montclair; she’s a freelance writer and teaches ESL at JVS of MetroWest. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Hadassah magazine, the Forward, the New York Jewish Week, and other publications. Find her at merrillsilver.wordpress.com