Favorite Christmas Cookie Survey
* This is a seasonal blog created to discover what cookies are favorites among my readership audience.*
The olfactory sense and memory are connected, as I suspected before I began writing this. I suspected this because my earliest memories of Christmas are connected with the smell of a certain cookie. This cookie, which is my holiday favorite, is cream cheese wreaths. These were made every year for Christmas when I was growing up, and still evokes the strongest memory of this holiday season for me.
The primary olfactory cortex, in which higher-level processing of olfactory information takes place, forms a direct link with the amygdala and the hippocampus. Olfaction is the sensory modality that is physically closest to the limbic system, of which the hippocampus and amygdala are a part, and which is responsible for emotions and memory. this may be why odor-evoked memories are unusually emotionally potent.Source: www.macalester.edu/academics
So, this connection between smell and memory has a strong physiological basis. Maybe, like me, your earliest Christmas memories are tied to the smell of a particular cookie, bread or baked good. If so, I would really enjoy hearing from you, and ask that you share the history behind the baked good if it is a heirloom recipe...no need to share the recipe however.
I am looking forward to hearing back from you!
~Kathy~
