What are your madeleines?

Just curious: the taste or aroma that takes you far back in time but to a completely specific time/place/situation.

[*] Prepared horseradish: puts me in my grandmother's Bronx apartment anticipating the imminent arrival at the table of her homemade gefilte fish
[*] Twinings English Breakfast and Earl Grey teabags: my undergrad dorm room circa 1976-'78. (Yes, I was a wild man.) We roughed it then. A few had tiny microwaves and rented mini-fridges. But most of us just stuffed desk drawers with shelf-stable things stolen from the cafeteria (saltines, individual portion cereal boxes, etc.) and we heated water in tiny hotpots or, in my case, with a coil that you plugged directly into the wall and then submersed in your mug. Must have been a total fire hazard.
[*] Overripe apples: Also my dorm room. Living in NY we had a many varieties of very local apples unavailable here, which always meant autumn to us. My mother would send a box of these from the local stand. Sometimes like 10 or 12 pounds of them. And I could never get through them all before they started to shrivel. My single room was minuscule, so it quickly took on a heavy, sweetish perfume, like the soap and candle shop that time forgot.
[*] Indian restaurant aroma: London 1979; The Ganges Restaurant near Paddington. I had never had Indian food until I was 20, and I was introduced to its wonders all at once on a year abroad. Papadam, rogan josh, do piaza, vindaloo...that door opened at that spot.
[*] Chestnuts: Growing up in a NY suburb in the 70s, our 'special occasion' place was a chef-owned, northern Italian place called Ciro's about 30 min. away. It seemed particularly magical because it was always dusk when we set out, and the place was just to the side of the road off a winding, narrow 2-lane highway with dark woods on both sides of the road. So the restaurant with warm light glowing from the inside would just suddenly appear to one's left---you'd shoot right by it if you weren't ready for it. Ciro always came out during the meal in his whites and joked and flirted. I first encountered mussels in white wine there and loved all the scalopped veal dishes that were the height of sophistication for that time and place: Saltimbocca, veal marsala, veal francese. And beautiful, light potato croquettes. My dad terrified and thrilled us by ordering octopus. But Ciro's specialty as far as I was concerned was the coup au marrons for dessert. For some reason I was completely entranced by the flavor and texture of chestnuts in ice cream. I only later encountered them plain roasted on the city streets.
[*] Mingled basil and garlic: As an undergrad I was mentored in literature, food, and wine by a teacher, and now decades-long friend. On one of the very first occasions when he invited me to his apartment (his actual apartment! a grown up professor!), to dine with other faculty---that I didn't even know! Just like a another grown up!---he had me help with prep for dinner. I don't remember what we were making ---- possibly just a caprese salad---but it involved tearing basil and chopping garlic. (Back home, despite having Craig Claiborne on the shelf, we did not use fresh garlic (honest, swarthy, hard-working laborers did, and we did not begrudge them their unrefined pleasures, but we did not indulge in them ourselves. Sometimes just a pinch of garlic powder, in a stew, if we were feeling really saucy.) So there I was, among the grown up intellectuals (who were gossiping and making rude personal jokes about other professors!), chopping garlic and tearing basil, a glass of white cotes du Rhone nearby (Jacques Millar, about $6 back then and possibly the first wine I learned the name of), and I picked up the wine glass, my hand stained with basil and smeared with garlic, brought it to my mouth, and a life-changing sensory event occurred. The fresh, minerally, grassy, acidic wine hit my tongue as the basil and garlic hit my nose and nothing was ever the same again.

Garlic and onion frying in good olive oil takes me right back to 4 or 5 years old, sitting in my grandmothers livingroom anticipating Sunday dinner.
God that's a good memory!

Yeah frying onions takes me back to my nana's house as I was walking there when it was cold she would make German style fried potatoes and it always smelled so good coming to the house. I also love the smell of chocolate cake baking in the oven because my mom would make it occasionally and it smelled good while in the oven.

The smell of a strong bay scented braise reminds me of my Grandmother's house (in her case, it was often pickled tongue on the stove). She died when I was pretty young and that's the one thing I remember about going to her house. I think smells and music create the strongest "quick recall" memories, and I am thankful for both.

Frying scents are definitely powerful triggers. For me, onions in butter are completely distinct from onions in olive oil.
Onions in butter are mom/grandmom and family; onions in olive oil are college and the whole new world of food that was opened up to me there. Had never encountered olive oil before I was 18. Or pesto. Etc.

The almost barfy-smell of genuine, fresh Parmesan cheese, encountered as a third-grader when my folks took me to a *real* "Eye-tallian" (as it was pronounced in my Italian-Swiss--Polish--Irish Catholic family) pizza/pasta resto on Vincennes at State St. My dad had been called back to the USAF for Korea, and was stationed in Chicago, whence we duly moved from Ft. Collins. I had *never* before smelled anything so exotic as that resto, and fell into awe and love of it instantly. Walking into PennMac in Pgh is like taking a time-travel trip, wafted on that smell...

Geo

Campbell's tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich always transport me back to childhood school days of running home to eat lunch and watch Bozo's Circus before running back to school.

Carambars make me think of fifth grade, when we had a french exchange student who brought us two big bags. Orangina makes me think of when I went to visit her that summer. I will not eat or drink either of them more than once every few years, so they stay that way.

Hamburgers frying in onions makes me think of my grandma's house.

Polish sausage and ham make me think of Easters with the same grandma.