# What you smell like after you get home from work



## pollopicu (Jan 24, 2013)

I don't mean sweat.

I can't seem to put my finger on it, but no matter what position I have, whether it's catering, or line-cooking, in any place, now or 15 years ago, the smell is always the same. It's like a seasoned smell on my chef jacket, pants and even skin, until I take a shower. Or a stale saltiness that sticks to me. I never smell like any one item I prepped that day. It's a very distinctive food industry/service smell. Is it just me? are my nostrils shot from smelling foods all day that when I get home I just smell the same thing once I get home day after day?


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## durangojo (Jul 30, 2007)

aah yes the smell...the smell that comes from slow layering throughout the day and night in a kitchen; of cutting fish, and meat and prep and baking and roasting and grilling and sauté. I like the smell actually. It's comforting in some weird way. I can only really smell it outside of my kitchen, as my small kitchen contains all the same smells as I wear. It's when I walk out of the kitchen to talk to customers, or to finally go home that it becomes most apparent, but I still like it...it's like a badge of honor...it's an honest smell, if that makes sense. It is equally oh so heavenly to slowly lather it all off each night.

joey


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## pollopicu (Jan 24, 2013)

I can't say I'm too fond of that mishmosh of aroma on myself, it makes me feel too masculine, I would rather smell of one thing, like fresh garlic, cilantro, or better yet, ginger or lemongrass.

I remember back in the day when i used to fabricate fish, I smelled OF fish and OF fish alone.


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## durangojo (Jul 30, 2007)

well no I can't say that I'm crazy about smelling like fish or beef blood, but I guess I never thought about food smells being masculine or feminine......just of food....hmmm....it reminds me of the smell of dirt when the rain hits it....all earthy and organic

joey


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## pollopicu (Jan 24, 2013)

You see, I get that from smells inside the kitchen, but not the smell on myself when I get inside the car, or after arriving home from work. To me the smell that clings to me isn't appetizing because to me it smells more like a concentrated bouillon, or base of some sort.

I love that smell too, the one of rain and dirt, that's how shiitake mushrooms taste to me, like a moist forest. No other mushroom tastes quite like that to me. That's a good thing. 

But I can see how "that smell" could be nostalgic and seen as a badge. When I took a few years off from the food business, I remembered that smell all too well when I began working again. It's unmistakable. it's cool to me, just not _that_ cool. lol


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## chefmasterjohn (Feb 28, 2012)

Pollopicu said:


> I don't mean sweat.
> 
> I can't seem to put my finger on it, but no matter what position I have, whether it's catering, or line-cooking, in any place, now or 15 years ago, the smell is always the same. It's like a seasoned smell on my chef jacket, pants and even skin, until I take a shower. Or a stale saltiness that sticks to me. I never smell like any one item I prepped that day. It's a very distinctive food industry/service smell. Is it just me? are my nostrils shot from smelling foods all day that when I get home I just smell the same thing once I get home day after day?


Never had any chefs in my family so I'm not sure what the so called " smell " is so sorry I have no suggestions or insight


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## thompson (Jun 5, 2013)

When I was being trained, I was told this smell you get in your clothes and hair comes from the fryers. Our kitchen has a few fryers on all the time, and my chef explained they vapourise fat particles. The rate they do this is too low for you to ever smell them, but your clothes absorb them enough to yield a smell - even though you encounter lots of things that smell stronger, the cooked fat in the air is the only constant, which makes the smell 'the same' wherever you go. Can anyone corroborate whether that's true or not?


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## chefed82 (May 31, 2013)

Smells aside( and yes I know this smell, its aroma is especially full of garlic and bread from my kitchen), the thing that bugs me is wearing glasses, at the end of the day when you take them off to clean them you see how much stuff is actually landing on your face, that what gives me goosebumps


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## pollopicu (Jan 24, 2013)

thompson said:


> When I was being trained, I was told this smell you get in your clothes and hair comes from the fryers. Our kitchen has a few fryers on all the time, and my chef explained they vapourise fat particles. The rate they do this is too low for you to ever smell them, but your clothes absorb them enough to yield a smell - even though you encounter lots of things that smell stronger, the cooked fat in the air is the only constant, which makes the smell 'the same' wherever you go. Can anyone corroborate whether that's true or not?


No way. I don't use fryers all the time. In fact, months go by that we don't even turn them on. When we do it's to fry just a few appetizers such as tempuras, spring rolls, crab rangoons. The they go off, but like i said months go by, and they don't even get turned on, and I still smell exactly as before. I don't agree with that.

I also smelled like that when I worked for a specific catering company in nyc and they didnt have fryers at all.


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## pollopicu (Jan 24, 2013)

ChefEd82 said:


> Smells aside( and yes I know this smell, its aroma is especially full of garlic and bread from my kitchen), the thing that bugs me is wearing glasses, at the end of the day when you take them off to clean them you see how much stuff is actually landing on your face, that what gives me goosebumps


Omg yes! i gave up wearing my glasses at work for the most part. By the time I'm done they look so gross. Reminds me of my grandmas glasses when she started suffering from dementia and would forget to wipe them.


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## missyd (Nov 26, 2012)

my glasses look so gross every day but hey at least that stuff isn't going into my eyes haha.  i have smelled like raw pork all week after butchering pigs.  yum.


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## pollopicu (Jan 24, 2013)

Well I guess the glasses thing won't be an issue anymore since my dog chewed mine up..


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## sean lougheed (Jun 9, 2013)

When I got back, my dog would just lick me, my clothes, whatever was in the kitchen!


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## sergeantpepper (Jan 22, 2013)

Sweat.


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