New York Stinks, Too

Hey, remember the snooty travel writer who put Cedar Rapids on his list of five stinky places to avoid?

He'd better make room for The Big Apple. From the Daily News:

The Manhattan maple mystery has been solved.

"The odor in New York City was an ester associated with foenugreek seed processing," Mayor Bloomberg said Thursday morning. "The Health Department confirmed that the odor does not probe a health risk."

The sweet syrupy smell has occasionally wafted over the city for the last four years, prompting worry among New Yorkers and a frantic but fruitless search for the cause.

City agencies mapped wind patterns, odor reports and air samples to determine that food processing plants in New Jersey's Bergen and Hudson counties were the likely cause.

 Hold it. Let me get this straight. Food processing sometimes causes odors? Shocking. How can people live like that?

But in New York, food processing odors are seductive according to the Times:

It wafted, seductively, over Staten Island, Brooklyn, then Manhattan, a smell that was sweet but indecipherable. And now the mayor has revealed that the likely source was fenugreek seeds used to produce fragrances at a plant in Hudson County in New Jersey.

The first wave arrived in October 2005, drawing thousands of New Yorkers onto the streets for a lively debate. Was it maple syrup? Caramel? A freshly baked pie? But as quickly as it arrived, it had vanished. Then, last month, the smell returned.

We need someone to write so poetically of our aromas.

Actually, fenugreek, which is an ingredient in the curry paste I make, does smell pretty good. But it's no match for crunch berries.