For most of my adult life, I've been fragrance-­free. That's not because I don't like scents, perfumes, eaux de cologne, and the like. I do. But I outgrew the scents I used as a teenager--Eau Sauvage and, yes, Canoe. I stopped dousing myself. Or perhaps I moved my powers of appreciation to my palate. I'm a food writer, and I try to identify and remember everything I eat.

Because I'm a food writer, I know how much industrial food depends on odorants, as molecules created for fragrance or flavors are called. And I'm interested in how the new "hypercuisine" or "molecular gastronomy" draws upon the technologies of industrial food to create new flavors: see the profile I wrote of Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea in Chicago ("The Alchemist," January/February 2007). But the food and fragrance industries use odorants in very different ways.