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Before we get started, a note to listeners that this episode includes exploration of racist material.

So the other day I was reading this book about the First Crusade. It's a moment in history that anyone who knows me

knows I have long been obsessed with. And in one passage there was a detailed

description of what the city of Antioch in modern day Syria was like then.

There were details about the way the streets looked, the size of the citadel, how loud the

central market was, but there was something noticeably missing, no description of what it smelled like.

It was weird because I register a lot of thoughts and memories in my head through smells. I'm sure you do too. And I

realized I almost never stop to think about how or why I smell things. Like why does a rose smell like a rose? Would the people in medieval Antioch

have described the smell of a rose the same way I do? Well, Christina Kim, a

reporter and producer on the Thruline team team has been thinking about those kinds of questions a lot over the last few years.

The other day, she even describes smell as a superpower that allows us to time travel.

Yeah, she went deep on some of the... superpower that allows us to time travel.

Yeah, she went deep on some of the big questions

about our sense of smell and ended up on this winding historical journey.

And now you get to go on it too. Christina is going to take it from here.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've been enveloped by the smell of lemon, rosemary, and spices.

It's the smell of this Spanish perfume called Alvarez Gomez-A-Wade-Cologna, the classic fragrance that's been

made in Spain since 1912 that my

grandmother me yaya and my mother have always worn.

...