It Smells Like Syrup

[nutleynut]

I was gonna say maybe liquid smoke, until I saw the antfreeze mention. That fit better. But my impulse seems to be a little closer accoerding to the article posted by Mattie. who'd a thunk it? Currie powder seeds used to make artificial butterscotch, and maple flavors among others.

[sligogirl]

Und. everyone's concern, IMO, many firms may "mask" odors, to throw off contaminants.
I had family living in Union, NJ., years ago, and the area, off of Rt 22. always smelled like, pepper. Apparently, upon, town's investigation, there is a spice factory in the area, which also, mills, packages, pepper.
Couldn't help sneezing, every time I passed that area.

Sligogirl

[openheads]

Hilarious article in the Star Ledger............
Pleasant smell from Jersey elicits complaints from New Yorkers

Posted by Mark DiIonno/Star-Ledger columnist February 06, 2009 7:40PM

Categories: Real-Time News
You gotta love those New Yorkers.
They get a few wafts of Vermont on the Upper West Side, and the drama starts.
Nine times since December of 2005, the smell of maple syrup had drifted through the Hudson waterfront, and New Yorkers wanted some answers. The mystery smell made the tabloids, the Times. The New Yorker even ran a blurb. Like they never smell urine in subway stations, or got stuck behind a city sanitation truck.
Louis Lanzano/APMayor Michael Bloomberg points to an area in New Jersey during a press conference at City Hall, Thursday. Several processing plants in Bergen and Hudson counties were found to be the source of a sweet smelling odor that has been present in New York City since 2005.
You'd think all that wonder over a little strange smell would be small town stuff, not something so many New Yorkers would fret about. And I mean fret, in that front porch, Kansas kind of way.
And so the mayor ordered an environmental reconnaissance mission to track down the smell. The Department of Environmental Protection was called in. They were ready for action, on red alert, for the next time the ghost of Mrs. Butterworth made her move. It happened on Jan. 29. Eighty people called 311, an NYC non-emergency complaint number. Crews raced to the scene. They applied odor identification science, tracked weather and wind patterns, and captured air samples in special air sample jars. Your tax dollars at work.
It was the wind direction gave it away.
They tracked the smell of a flavor company in North Bergen (which you or I could have done with a little spittle on a raised index finger and a copy of the Yellow Pages).
Then the snide fun started. The mayor throw a press conference and pronounced, "The mystery of the maple syrup mist has finally been solved," Bloomberg said. He had a chart that revealed the culprit is New Jersey, and there was a whiff in his attitude like, "Who didn't know that?" (Someone should remind the mayor he is also mayor of Staten Island.)
Then came the news.
Bloomberg News reported, "Ooh, that smell! It's coming from New Jersey."
The front cover of the Daily News yelled, "IT CAME FROM JERSEY."
The New York Post story lead said, "Who knew that America's armpit could smell so sweet?"
Well, not for nothing, New Jersey has been making America's armpits smell sweet for more than a century, something New Yorkers should remember next time they're sardined on a transit train in August.
We are the fragrance and flavor capital of America. Always have been.
The giants of the industry, like International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) and Firmenich, are here, as well as dozens of others. From dollar-store shampoos to $100 an ounce perfumes, from laundry detergent to stick deodorant, New Jersey companies makes the fragrances that makes the nation less offensive. Even New Yorkers.
"I'd say we have about 60 various flavor and fragrance houses operating in the state," said Hal Bozarth, the executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey. "I know we have more here in New Jersey than any other part of country."
This all began in the early 1900s, when French perfume companies began to open New York houses. Business was done in Manhattan, but the stuff was made in Jersey, where land was cheap.
It's been that way ever since.
"Just about every product in the supermarket has some kind of flavor or fragrance added, and so many of those are developed or manufactured in New Jersey.
While New Jersey environmental regulations require air-scrubbers to control odor emissions, smells do escape. And not all are like old rotten-egg sulfur emissions from outdated energy plants.
Some are actually pleasant. Enticing, even.
For instance, the company that produced the maple syrup smell was called Frutarom and it was processing fenugreek seeds. Fenugreek is used in curry powders. Fenugreek extract is used in artificial vanilla, caramel, butterscotch and maple flavorings.
Some of the best New Jersey smells are artificial.
Ahrre Maros runs a small coffee roastery in Garwood, where the smell of roasting beans can mist over North Avenue.
"It actually doesn't smell like coffee," said Maros, whose retail store, Ahrre's Coffee Roastery, is in Westfield. "It's more like roasting chestnuts."
Still not bad.
Jerry Greaves, the owner of Food Ingredient Solutions in Teterboro, says the industrial areas of his town are filled with mostly pleasant aromas from a number of companies, including Kerry (formerly Manheimer Fragrance), Symrise, and Takasago, a worldwide Japanese company.
"The other day I was outside Teterboro Municipal Building, and everything smelled like strawberries."
Which is better than car emissions from nearby Route 17, or jet fuel emissions from planes leaving Teterboro. Or the Greyhound Bus Terminal or the New York City Sanitation yard, both on Manhattan's West Side.




Here are some of the comments on NJ.Com....................


"Now when idiots across the nation tell you New Jersey smells, you tell them yes, it does. It smells like sweet, delicious maple syrup. If you could, you'd put New Jersey on your pancakes!
How about a new state motto? New Jersey: New York's air freshener!"


"It doesn't seem fair... we give them maple syrup... they give us hypodermic needles on the beach."