The New York Times published an essay on the smells that remind one of childhood and home. This elicited a flurry of replies from readers. Here’s my story of childhood aroma.
I was born in Fulton, New York. One block from the hospital where I was born was a massive Nestle factory, known in town as “The Chocolate Works”. It first opened in 1900. The smell of chocolate was probably the first thing I smelled as a baby. The aroma of chocolate was a constant in Fulton when I was small. To most folks in Fulton, it was the smell of money.
My father, uncle, stepsister, and numerous other acquaintances worked at the Chocolate Works over the years. The pay was good and the work was steady. The company took good care of their employees. I remember the gift boxes Dad would bring home from work around Christmas. They contained lots of plain and Crunch® bars, semi-sweet morsels, Quik®, and other Nestlé products. We were less enamored of the Crosse and Blackwell products in the gift boxes. My siblings and I did NOT do mincemeat or marmalade. When I was 5, we moved to the town next door to Fulton, so the chocolate smell was usually absent; however, if the wind was blowing just right, we could catch the faint scent of chocolate in the air.
The Chocolate Works ceased operations on May 2, 2003, putting over 400 people out of work. As with many of these closings, Nestle cited corporate consolidation. It was a surreal sensation for years when I’d drive past the factory on my way to and from the Syracuse airport on vacations: No chocolate aroma. Most of the buildings were finally demolished in the last five years. An Aldi grocery store now sits on a small corner of the property. Although the Chocolate Works is no longer in existence, the smell of chocolate is a powerful trigger of early childhood for me.
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