The Smell of an Italian Christmas

My aunt, who was born in Rome, says she comes to Rome both to see me and to smell.  Because the smells of Rome, she says, are the most wonderful in the world.

My son has her nose.  He smells things that I fully cannot, nuances of scent that I can smell just in a whiff.

So he at Christmastime in Italy is in 7th heaven.  But I am happy too because even with just an average nose, there are so many evocative smells to enjoy at Christmas, and they are everywhere.

There is the rich, heady smell of roasted chestnuts, roasted outdoors in a round tin pan, over coals, and handed to you in a large paper cone that steams.

There is the smell of Christmas day panettone, as you step into a pasty shop where the kitchen door is open — a smell of buttery yeast bread, powdered sugar and almonds.

There is the perfume of the norcineria or salumeria or alimentari (food store), a combination of aged cheeses, Parmesan and prosciutto and — often — truffle.   At Christmas the shelves of food stores are overwhelmed with seasonal delicacies and the blending of their fragrances lures you into a store you had perhaps no intent to enter.

The smell of churches — often damp, always under-heated (your nose is chilled as you sniff), the fragrance a cold, haunting one — of candles, often beeswax candles — in shrines scattered around churches.  Italians visit churches at Christmas time to see the presepio, or creche, and if there are children with them, especially, light more candles than usual.  Candles flicker, candles smoke, candles hiss, and each of them creates a distinct smell that is for me  an enduring part of an Italian Christmas.