Free The Diary of a Nose by Jean-Claude Ellena

we chat and agree that we have no idea what to expect. But, spurred on by curiosity and affection for our host, we have both gladly accepted the invitation. A driver is waiting for us at the station in Liège, and he takes us to the faculty of agronomic sciences at the university in Gembloux.
    After a visit to the campus, we are shown into a greenhouse of exotic plants where we are welcomed by Pierre and Sylvie Gagnaire. On one side of this unusual setting (which seems to invite us on a journey), the chef has set up his stage facing the guests’ table: a gas hob with four rings and a table by way of a work surface. Behind it are a sink, a fridge and a few cupboards in white wood to store plates, glasses, cutlery and utensils.
    Gagnaire’s guests are not merely spectators but, along with him, actors for an evening. The play is called ‘For the Joy of Taste’ and we have each been given a small notebook and a pencil to jot down our impressions. I shall write very little this evening; I cannot live intensely and make notes about my feelings at the same time.
    The dinner begins with a tartare of langoustine and razor-shell clams with pomegranate, a subtle combination of sweet and acid flavors, followed by cod fillet nestling in a velouté sauce made with nettles, a deft interplay of masks in which the greenness of the nettles disguises the tender flesh of the fish. Next come fresh morels flavored with liquorice, the woodland tastes and the bitterness of liquorice root in perfect harmony, then courgette flowers served with white asparagus tips. We are still in the realm of tender, slightly bitter flavors. The dinner continues with a pea and baby broad bean soup with red olive-filled ravioli, flavored with castoreum, accompanied by a wine with the same feral tones and hints of raspberry.
    We are a third of the way through the menu. Pierre Gagnaire is completely focused on his cooking, bringing pans up to his nose, smelling them, listening to them, putting them back down and stirring their contents with a finger to check the temperature. All his senses are alert. We talk among ourselves and with him, our conversations punctuated by applause, bravos and hurrahs. The only obvious sign of exertion: his increasingly unruly hair, which testifies to the effort he is going to, and gives some idea of the pleasures he is affording us. He has to change his apron several times during the course of the evening.
    The meal began at nine o’clock, and it is now two o’clock in the morning. Our aesthetic appetites are gratified by the menu’s boundless imagination; we are physically sated. The desserts are to be concise; after such generosity, sweet things are almost uncalledfor. Pierre has not left the stage for five hours. Five hours of generosity. His cuisine is not a response to a need, but a loving dialogue. And that certainly is art.

    On the plane, then in Cabris, Friday 28 May 2010
    Shameful smells
    The woman next to me on the flight is wearing Van Cleef & Arpels’
First
. Her perfume is struggling to cover the smell of cigarettes impregnating her clothes. Sitting beside her, her husband jolts with occasional bouts of hiccups, which release the smell of undigested garlic.
    My acute sense of smell means I can detect and identify all sorts of odors that may be intended to be secret or hidden. It is not unusual for me to discern alcohol, tobacco, sweat, breath or strong food; they are all easy for me to pick up and are not necessarily unpleasant.
    Whereas the images we receive are exterior to us, smells actually penetrate us. This can be experienced as a breach of our person, and psychologists believe this forms the basis for the pleasure, displeasure or even disgust a particular smell can elicit. In everyday life, we are more tolerant of our own smells and those of our nearest and dearest than we are of other people’s. And yet they eat, defecate, urinate, sweat, make love and live like everyone else. In fact, our olfactory rejections