[Sarape]

I've been thinking of starting this thread for a few weeks. Let me explain. What I'm curious to see is interesting examples of food-processing plant smells which may be located in your community. Depending on the size of the plant and the food being processed, these things can creat quite a presence.

Here are my best two examples.

In the early 1980s I worked in San Jose, CA and there was a tomato canning plant nearby our office. As the weather got warm -- well it was always warm in San Jose -- you could smell that plant within a mile radius, depending on the wind direction. Can't say it was always pleasant, but it was pungent.

Now I work in a small industrial parkway and our neighbor is a chicken processing plant. Depending on the day of the week -- the legend is that on Monday they start at the head and by Friday they've finished the tail -- I get a strong smell of roasting turkey. It reminds me of Thanksgiviing every day. This is about the best perk of my current job.
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' She says, 'I am the glamorous type.' I said, 'So what?'

[Feste]

When I was in high school, living in Oakland, I had a boyfriend that lived in Alameda and I would drive down the 880 to go to his house past a Wonderbread bakery/factory place. (Whatever you think about Wonderbread, the smell of freshly baked bread is always amazing.) We would always roll our windows down and take deep inhalations. Now when I drive that way, the smell isn't so strong, you can't smell it that often. Maybe they used to pipe out the smell like McDonald's does with its fries? But sometimes, I suppose when the wind is right, you can catch a whiff, and when I do, I think of Kevin B.

[Judy]

Haighs Chocolates have their factory and shop in a suburb close to the city. I love visiting the shop or cycling past when the wind is blowing in the right direction. I'm very envious of the residents who live nearby.

[Erin]

My mom's best friend grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania and said the scent of chocolate was always on the wind. She is still an incurable chocoholic!
As far as McDonalds, I don't know what they were cooking the other day but it was not fries. My husband and I were next door at a Garden Center when we couldn't stand the smell anymore and had to leave.
My aunt runs a small gourmet food business, Mason Hill Farm where she makes jams, chutneys and fruit butters. The air always smells sweet when you pull up to her building. Mmmm , blueberry rhubarb jam ......mouth watering at the thought.
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

[melinda]

here in richmond (va) we have (or until just recently had) a cookie factory called FFV (as in first families of Va...la di da) and as u got closer to "town" u could smell the cookies (i never liked eating those particular cookies, but they sure smelled great!) At least it smelled better than the usual tobacco smell, which wafted around the richmond air quite frequently.
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Make me half the person my dog thinks I am.

[Dairy_Queen]

I've heard tell, that Chicago is the "Candy City" of the U.S. I don't know if that's true or not, or if it was, if the title still stands. But, since we are or were the home to Frango Mints, Brach's, Blommer Chocolates, Fannie May and ?Ferango? (the company who makes Lemon Heads and Red Hots), I think it might be partially true.

In the Loop, we have Bloomer Chocolate Factory and on any given day, the heady aroma of chocolate is thick in the air. For 99.9% of the population, I'm sure this is a Turn ON, but because I don't like chocolate , sometimes, it's a big Turn OFF!

To the West of the city, in Old Irving Park, the company who makes Lemon Heads and other stuff that kids, and some adults like, the air is so thick with "sweet" that you can sometimes taste it! Cotton Candy, Cherry, Lemon or other flavours will hit you like a cloud and I'm sure that it drives sales up through the roof! They should have push-cart vendors along the side of Irving Park Road, selling that days flavours: their stock would soar through the clouds!

Waaaay out West, going to the far Western Suburbs, there's also a Wonderbread factory, and I agree...although I wouldn't eat it, now, the smell of freshly baked bread is undeniably wonderful.

Lastly, on Chicago's Near North neighborhood, we have Superior Coffee and when they roast their beans, it smells like Starbucks is declaring WAR on our senses!

All in all, some nice aromas to drive through.

[seastar]

So many of my memories relate directly to smells ...

Growing up in a small-ish city (Kitchener-Waterloo) in Southern Ontario, Canada, I was surrounded by smells. My town had a wide variety of manufacturing plants.

In the summer when the heat and humidity would become unbearable, the smells would follow suit and in some cases also become unbearable!

The worst: was the stench from the Schneider's meat slaughter yard and food processing plant, which could be found a few short blocks from my highschool. I am a vegetarian to this day, do I need to say more?

The somewhat gross, when the heat was right: three breweries within a few kilometre radius. Strong, pungent hops.....eeewwww.

The good: the Dare cookie factory. We would roll down our windows every time we would drive by in the car. Cookies = good!

The favourite: on a smaller scale, my favourite manufacturing smell was the sweet, burnt smell of maple syrup being boiled down, while visiting small mennonite farms in my hometown.

Amazing how smell triggers the brain and vice versa.
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In the whorehouses of the bakeries, I was serially, gluttonously, irredeemably unfaithful to all those chapatis-next-door waiting for me back home. East was East, but yeast was West.

On Leavened Bread - Salman Rushdie

[Rainey]

Seastar- I no longer have a very accute sense of smell. But when I smell liquid vitamins drops and fresh earth they instantly bring back the flavor from my childhood. The fresh earth thing comes with the tactile sense of grit on my teeth as well!