A soft aroma of wheat emanates from the lobby of the Jupiter pasta restaurant in New York. It’s not pasta. An herbaceous and vegetal smell fills the bathrooms of Horses, an upscale bistro in Los Angeles. It’s not the vegetables. And that intense aroma of butter that permeates the apartment of journalist Emma Specter, in Austin, Texas? There is no butter in sight.
These fragrances all come from candles designed to evoke particular foods at particular times: the starchy water left over following cooking pasta, a sun-warmed Roma tomato fresh from the vine, and a buttered flour tortilla fresh from the oven. at the HEB supermarket in Texas.
Specter, 29, acknowledged that buttered omelette “it’s right on the razor’s edge of a slightly cloying scent and actually smells good”. But it takes her back to when she first tasted those tortillas.
Food-scented candles can evoke thoughts of sugary muffins, like pumpkin pie or vanilla cupcakes. But the aromas of the new ones are salty.
Since wellness company Flamingo Estate launched its Roma Heirloom Tomato Candles in 2020, they have become its most popular item, with more than 20,000 sold. At fragrance company Joya Studio, the best-selling candle smells like sautéed garlic—a 2022 collaboration with New York pizzeria Lucali. A purple croissant-scented candle from luxury candle maker Overose is a top seller on its website.
“We are all much more obsessed with food than ever.said Victoria Corrales, an executive at Flamingo Estate.
And lighting a tomato candle requires much less effort than cooking, said Minji Kwon, 33, a graphic designer in New York.
During the pandemic lockdowns, candle companies began selling hyper-specific food scents that channeled what consumers might be missing.
Erica Werber founded her company, Literie, in early 2021. Among her candle scents is “praline cart,” which evokes the smoky scent of roasted walnuts from street vendors.
“They don’t buy it just for the scent“, said. “They are buying it for the souvenir”.
Ryan Bush, an artist in New York, said he always thought of food candles as “toxic versions of baked goods.” Bush, 32, bought the garlic candle. “It totally captures the aroma of sautéed garlic, but once the novelty wore off I felt confused and hungry.”
However, he said he was “pleasantly surprised” by DS & Durga’s Lightable Latkes candle, which didn’t exactly smell like a latke, but had a satisfying potato aroma that reminded him of the dish.
In DS & Durga, the pasta water candle was a joint effort with Jupiter. The formula is a hodgepodge of aromas, said David Moltz, one of the founders: salt water, an herbal element, “something that smells yellowish so it looks like you’re smelling pasta or something starchy, and something a bit buttery”.
PRIYA KRISHNA
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6633520, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-03-28 19:10:09
