Author: Lady Spraxic
I don’t like soups that are just perfumed water.
I like the dense and murky ones, for example, the spring pea soup – less renowned than the butternut one but just as glorious – which mysteriously tastes like rosemary. Dense soups contain not yet explored secrecies, not quite visible wonders. There is something majestic about them, a humility conscious of its greatness.
I like my soups how I like my friends: full of surprises. I have one who tasted goat cheese fondue before me although hating cheese – all kinds – is one of her life mottos. More than extreme jealousy, I felt complete astonishment. A hundred or two years ago – depending on if you think which one, from lived impressions and objective facts, is closer to Truth – one of them said that she preferred red wine because it was more contemplative. I object. Red wine is foul and prone to stains. I learned that it was not the color of the grapes that gave red wine its colour, but the maceration of their skins in the liquid. I am not entirely against maceration as a concept, just
not in my glass: I completely support the use of maceration in perfumery. Though that might be because I approve of the Odorous Science as a whole. In the perfume world, another
unsettling concept occurs: the fragrance pyramid. It is composed of three degrees: the top note, the heart note and the base note. I think it might be a little simplistic to reduce perfume,
the physical manifestation of invisible essence, to static notions such as maceration and pyramids, but the damage is done.
I want the top note of my perfume to smell like sparkling wine, the heart note like peas and zucchini soup, and the base note to taste like leaving my parents’ home for the first time.