What’s That Cheesy Smell?
Last weekend was Titus, a major event for campus that has had wider impacts, such as coverage in magazines or an alluring event new students. It’s Titus — it’s not St. Lawrence University without Titus. Much like many events at SLU, Titus is an excuse to drink. This is not an argument against drinking; I’m all for drinking — glory to beer! But what this is is an explanation, and hopefully, by the end, you’ll see cheese just a little different; I promise that’ll make sense.
So, drinking is a common practice that, when done to the point of excess, often leads to either a terrible next day or, if you’re truly unfortunate, the ol’ boot-and-rally. I’d argue that 100 percent of people have vomited at some point in their life. We all know that awful smell wafting back at you, or it fills the room while the person in the stall next to you makes that famous plea, “I’ll never drink again if this just ends.” But that smell… we all know that awful smell – what is it? It comes from something called butyric acid, and it reeks. What you may not know is that despite that smell being one of the most revolting things one can be olfactorily subjected to, I’d argue that most of you quite enjoy that smell. Imagine yourself at an Italian restaurant: you’ve decided to order spaghetti, and with your plate comes the famous questions, “Do you want cheese on that?” followed by “Say when?” Well, that special spiral, that’s most often parmesan cheese, which gains its special, oh-so-wonderful cheesy smell from butyric acid. That’s right, that lovely topping on your meal has the same acid that makes vomit stink. Sorry!
“How can this be,” I hear you say? Well, it’s a special thing known to science as “our sense of smell sucks.” More or less, your body can understand situations. In cases such as your roommate trying to conquer a bout of norovirus, it recognizes the butyric acid as a big no-no. In contrast, when you’re about eight bowls of gnocchi soup at Olive Garden, it recognizes it as an “ooey gooey, yes, please.”
“So what,” yells the crowd? Well, now you get to join me in an awful existence because once your mind understands the connection between the two, that evil, malicious butyric acid, you can’t separate them. Now, whenever you smell parmesan cheese, you’ll think to vomit. When you smell puke, you’re going to weirdly crave Italian food. I’m sorry, but I’ve been cursed with this knowledge, and now so have you! Perhaps you’ll be lucky, read this, digest it, forget about it and move on. However, for the rest of the people like me, you’re going to be really messed up, and I pity you, but it’s only fair that you all knew the truth.
So… what’s that “cheesy smell?” It’s butyric acid!!!