It’s near impossible to find a place that makes food in London that doesn’t reek of fried or baked cooking. You walk inside any food establishment, including snack bars, delis, pizza parlours and eateries of all sorts and kinds, from burger joints, chicken kitchens, vegan spots (where they cook their non-animal goodness), buffet bars, noodle shops, toasted sandwicheries, wurst bars, pasta bars, kebab joints, and any generic cafe, bar or restaurant – go there for a meal, a snack, a coffee, a drink, and you end up smelling like the inside of an oven, the bottom of a pan, the surface of a grill, or the guts of an overused ventilation fan. Or a combination thereof.
This olfactory pollution, which I refer to as a ‘cacophony of smells’ – or ‘cacodory’, which sounds just as bad as it is – doesn’t seem to bother people. I’m one of the few who have a problem with it, by the looks of it.
Okay, I get it, it’s not a real problem, sure (if your idea of cologne is Eau de Garlique or Parfum de Toastie). But if your preferences lie elsewhere, just saying, you’re stuck with odours that won’t leave until you wash them off.
Settle down, people tell me. If you don’t like the smell, don’t eat out – that kind of feedback. Which is a callous and lazy thing to say.
I also hear this:
Deal with it, like the rest of us.
First-world problems.
Get a life!
Grow up!
Call me picky, but cooking fumes should be kept out of the eating area (wild idea!) and inside the kitchen where they belong, at least in places where the marketing doesn’t include the terms ‘homely’ or ‘open-plan.’
So here’s what I say to my heartless critics: Grow up yourselves, I tell them. Just because everyone’s learned to tolerate a stink doesn’t make it right.
The thing is, I like going out, and I want to keep doing it without carrying everyone’s kitchen around with me when I’m done with a place. I don’t particularly enjoy the sour smell of cooked oil in the back of my throat every time I draw breath. I don’t fancy taking the smell home with me so my place can feel like it’s been drenched in broiled spray-on butter. I don’t want my furniture smelling like chopped onion, deep-fried garlic, sauteed shallots and grilled shrimp. I don’t enjoy the staying power of vegetable oil fumes. I don’t want my hair reeking of grilled meat and chicken fat and potato holocaust.
And I don’t want to hang my clothes out the window every time I come home. We’re not allowed to hang anything out front, care of the building management (thank goodness), and in the back where there’s no facade to spoil there are pigeons that love to nest and poop. There are also seagulls that specialise in pinching stray shit. And pollution, there’s plenty of that, too – a ton of grime and soot, tar and acid rain that percolates in the wind.
So no, I don’t want to leave my clothes out for long periods of time, or even short periods of time.
I also like wearing my pants and coats a couple of times before washing and dry-cleaning them. You know, a small matter of water and energy conservation.
And I do like to step out and go places every day because my flat is small and there’s only so much a person can take of the same old cramped space, especially if it’s overpriced and noisy (see roadworks and noisy building tenants), so I keep finding places to grab a snack or a coffee, hang out and get some work done on my laptop, as numerous people do these days. It’s a blessing to work remotely, and how awesome it would be to make the most of the privilege without getting dipped from head to fingernail in chronic kitchen musk. I mean thank you very much for the free WiFi and the relaxed attitude – I appreciate how so many establishments allow me to read and Zoom-chat and type away without harassing me to buy something every ten minutes. I love how easy and welcoming most places are, but why the fuck is the price for their hospitality a cubic ton of cooking smog?
At least there’s no tobacco smoking on the premises. Imagine smelling like a toasted ham baguette, a deep-fried fishcake and an ashtray.
Let’s not talk about vaping. There’s something about the odour of digital strawberries and heating-element cookies and electronic cinnamon sprinkles that doesn’t sit well with me, and good thing all of it is banned indoors.
Sure, food isn’t the same as tobacco or vaping (how could you ever compare them?) but kitchens create a stink that patrons could live without, and it’s crazy that we have to make a special point about it, or that we even have to argue over this.
I guess I have a nose that’s oversensitive to food odours. I’m too tightly wound to deal with reality, right? Or maybe you could say I don’t like to carry around unwanted guests inside the fabric of my clothes and in my hair and skin pores, all day long.
That’s London for you. The capital city of a number of things, many of them wonderful and grand, some of them not so much.
Over(smell)kill isn’t so grand, not one bit.
And from what I gather it’s the same – or catching on – in most cities.
Here’s an idea. How about I install a kitchen in my bedroom and get a perpetual stew going? That’ll desensitise me all right, so I can join the crowd and go about my business like everyone else, sharing the day’s gastro fumes with careless joy.
So petty, they say.
Nobody’s perfect, I respond. By the way, were you at that cute little café at the corner by the park yesterday?
Yes, they say. Two days ago. How did you know?
I’d recognise that smell of fried bacon and sauteed broccoli anywhere.
