Smell is a funny sense. They say grapefruit can make you feel better with its smell alone – which is good news for a lot of people who are not keen on grapefruit. Apparently Victoria Beckham used to carry a piece of grapefruit with her all the time, to sniff at it occasionally. One only hopes she didn’t just carry it unwrapped in her designer pocket and that she replaced it with fresh fruit every now and then.
Cooking smells are gorgeous (I conceitedly trust it’s the case when I cook) but they don’t make you salivate when still lingering on the next morning. Durian, the dubious king of fruit is described as ‘heaven on the inside, hell on the outside’ and apparently smells like gym socks or rotten meat. VB would not carry that around, would she? Leeks and onions stink when raw and chopped, bliss when fried in a little butter. Cabbage? Don’t start me off there.
The point here, which might have got a little off the radar, is that smell does not always go together with the taste – except limes. Limes both smell and taste gorgeous. The best bit in making this cake was grating the lime zest.
Well – almost the best bit. Eating it isn’t bad either.