History
10 Favorite Smells of New England
From Fenway sausages to September’s apple orchards, here are ten favorite, distinct smells of New England.
By Mel Allen|May 12 2022|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine Keenan
Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
Favorite Distinct Smells of New England
County-Fair Fried Dough
Stroll the dirt paths between the stalls of the great New England county fairs and breathe deep-once you’ve embraced fried dough, it stays with you forever.Paper Mills
More and more the northern New England paper mills have closed or have drastically changed their processing as the major paper companies have taken their work overseas. But the distinctive cabbage odor that came from those great smokestacks and carried on the wind for miles was once the singular smell of those company towns. Residents always said it was “the smell of money.” They were right. Most of their jobs have gone, and with them much of that peculiar, precious smell.Freshly Split Maple Trees
Late spring is when many of us have our winter wood delivered, whether we split it ourselves or it arrives already split. The most welcome smell for me is when my axe bites into a chunk of maple. The forest seems to explode all around me.Italian Sausages on Yawkey Way
There are stages to enjoying a Red Sox game. First, of course, is getting a ticket. But once that’s in hand, thousands of fans mill about in the blocks surrounding Fenway Park, all sharing in that excitement of a summer night, a game ahead. And it all begins with an Italian sausage smothered in peppers and onions. If you’ve been there, done that, you know that deep, earthy smell.Low Tide on the Maine Coast
The mud flats are rippled; you smell the seaweed, the clams, the mud, the water. Seagulls provide the music.Bait Barrels on a Lobstering Wharf
The smell a lobster craves, and will go through the gates of hell for — or at least the opening of a lobster trap — to satisfy a primordial hunger. Head Down East, hang out on a wharf where lobster boats are at anchor, and soak it in.
Photo Credit : Jarrod McCabe
Balsam Fir
Trees and wreaths piled high from the forests of Washington County, Maine. Your house is transformed. For a while you put aside the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas. For now, freshly cut balsam stands in your room, hangs by the door.Freshly Steamed Lobster and Butter
That bait results in the smell of a New England summer evening – something that has brought people to the coast for generations. The bib dangling from the neck, the little cups of melted butter, the sharp, startling smell of the meat coming away from the tail, as you hold it poised just an instant before biting.Potato Fields in Aroostook County, Maine
I picked potatoes with a few dozen schoolchildren in Aroostook many years ago. It was for one of my first stories for Yankee, and what I remember so well is the smell of the dirt: thousands of acres of dirt being dug up by all those eager hands, and the potatoes overflowing the baskets. It was simply the smell of land and heritage all wrapped in soil and spud.Apple Orchards
Think late September. A day of sun. Maybe 55 degrees. You’re reaching into a tree full of McIntoshes, and you pick the first one you’ve held this season. Bite. The crunch, the taste, and the smell all meld. Fall. Those are my 10, for now. I also wanted to say summer hay, and November woodsmoke, not to mention the fried-clam shacks of the North Shore, sun lotion on the sands of Cape Cod… but I’ll hold off, mostly because I want to know which New England scents stay with you the most.
Photo Credit : Pixabay
Favorite New England Smells | Reader Suggestions
After posting this to the Yankee Magazine Facebook page, we heard a lot of wonderful suggestions for New England smells to add to the list. Here are a few of our favorites!- Spring Lilacs
- Hot Maple Syrup
- Beach Roses
- Balsam Trees
- Campfire Smoke
- Mountain Laurel
- Fair Food
- Wet Leaves in Fall
- Fresh Cut Grass in Summer
- Snow (which made us wonder… Does Snow Have a Smell?)
SEE MORE: 75 Classic New England Foods The Most Beautiful Places in Maine 10 Prettiest Coastal Towns in New England
I wish i had the time to smell every smell u mention and every town u mention and more
Danny, I don’t know where you live, but if it’s in New England, I know you have your own memorable scents that will always stay with you. Just the smell of autumn leaves. Thanks for reading.
The temps are in the 40s this week and for the first time this spring, plants are unfolding a little and you start to smell spring on the breeze. Last night I sat down for dinner and we had a moth at the slider and even with the sun down the temperature was showing 50 degrees…
I’m sure we’re in for more cold weather before spring arrives in March but catching the errant scent of greening things is enough to hold me until spring really gets here….
Jeff, I love your line, “the errant scent of greening things.” Lovely.
I love the smell of balsam in the great outdoors. Usually on a hike in the woods, the smell will come from out of nowhere and fill the air. I just stand there and sniff it all in. It always feels a little bit warmer in the spot where I can smell the balsam.
Mel, I love your line, “Just the smell of autumn leaves.” Lovely.
Mel, I am a Midwesterner in place, a New Englander in heart. A summer trip to the Lakes Region of New Hampshire some years ago filled my lungs – and soul – with the purest air imaginable. I will always remember that fresh breeze with a hint of flowers and an unmistable whiff of the sea borne on the wings of far traveling birds. So cleansing, so calming, so right.
Going north on 128 toward Cape Ann, just before you can see the water, you smell the salt air. That first rest stop on I-95 once you cross into Maine, the scent of pine is heavenly. The smell of mud and decayed vegetation just under the snow as it melts in spring. The awesome aroma when you walk in the door of Coney Island Lunch on Southbridge St. in Worcester, MA. Ah, the memories!
Me… I’m a Dubliner, and no not from NH! Dublin, Ireland, and when my Mom and I visited Wood’s Hole, Cape Cod and took the ferry to The Vineyard, we were guided into port on the wings of the seagulls and the scent of the salt-laden air!!
The smell of a pancake and maple syrup breakfast, walking into our favourite diner on Beacon Hill…
The aroma of incense wafting from the mysterious cluster of shops, down by the harbour in Salem…
The smell of success in Providence RI, and the sweet smell of money in Newport RI!!
These are the scents and smells that I experienced in New England, and I truly believe I belonged here in another life! We fit right in, and hope to experience some of the other smells mentioned like woodsmoke in the hills and the smell of Autumn leaves, when we go leaf-peeping in September! Fingers crossed! May sound touristy, but we thoroughly enjoyed our visit, any suggestions on what other things/places we cud see or do welcome!
Beautiful, delightful… New England!! =
Thanks for sharing Mel!
I don’t think anyone mentioned a bowl of freshly picked blueberries!
I often open a bag of Wymans frozen blueberries, take a whiff and I’m transported back to summer.
gail o: Maybe you can tell us what a peat fire smells like. I wonder if it is as appealing as wood smoke is to us on a crisp winter night.
Thank you to everyone who commented here. It is great fun me to read your own personal special scents .
I love to inhale the warm, sweet vegetable breath of Rupert, my pet Randall bull, after he’s munched some molasses grain or moist, pungent haylage! (It is infinitely preferable to the decidedly non-vegetable suspiratons of my equally beloved cats.) ^ ^
There is nothing so sweet as a summer meadow drying in the sun, clover and mint and timothy, and the perfume of milkweed can make you as dizzy as the honey-crazed bees, because you just want to keep breathing in. ***
And I’ll bet Gail, from Dublin, knows the delicate fragrance of fluted daffodils, which must be brightening the meadows at home right about now with their pure, simple yellow!
Oh Laura! You are right the smell of the daffodils is intoxicating at the moment, They are spread over the highways, fields, parks etc, like a bright yellow comforter and serve as a ray fo sunshine to us all here when the sun does not shine…which can be most days!!
As for the smell of a peat fire Mel…hard to explain on paper! It has a heady, earthy smell and is indicitive to Ireland, (perhaps Scotland and Wales also). A true peat fire would be found in the rural country villages and towns now, and in areas such as Wicklow in the South East the region (County/State) known as the Garden of Ireland, peat bogs can still be found. In Dublin, (the County/State beside Wicklow) we would have a brick shaped peat fuel to burn in a real fire. However, there are restrictions on what you can burn due to smog laws brought in about 10-15 years ago approx! It is definitely as appealing as the smell of woodsmoke on a crisp Winter night! And it envokes thoughts of coming home from school (now work!!), closing the front door to the outside world, sitting down to a dinner of warming comfort food and cosying down by the fire for the night!
It’s the smell of old Ireland, and smell of tradition and culture and is steeped in our Nations history. In times of trouble or great success it has been an eternal comfort and a silent giver of hope, as it’s heady aroma signaled the winding down of one day and the inevitable beginning of another! Hope that gives you some insight Mel!! Best I can do without bottling the scent and sending it over!! Mmm… that’s a thought! :0)
That CABBAGE smell also = toxic fumes. It is not pleasant either it stinks like rotten eggs mixed with a very almost overwhelming cabbage stench.
I love the smell of the flowers/shrubs that grow right along the coast in York Beach…. they’re like a sea rose – thorny bush — ?? I live in South Carolina now – North Myrtle Beach — but I’ve never been able to find those same plants – the flower almost looks like a bulb? Very hard to describe — does anyone know what they are ? I’d love-love-love to be able to buy/plant some here — not sure if the relentless summer heat might kill them though. Any input would be greatly appreciated ! 🙂
The flower is called Rosa Rugosa, also called a beach rose. Loves Sandy soil. It is a smell of summer along the coast of Maine..,.
Lilacs…
Autumn leaves on a cool October morning coupled with a cloud-free azure sky.
Lilacs, lilacs, lilacs…..wishing, (every day), I could move back to New England:(
The smell of boiling maple sap on a woodstove.
The smell of steamed clams.
The smell of molasses in a pot of baked beans.
The smell of the roads during mud season.
The clean smell of freshly fallen snow.
The smell of the county fair. Fried things, cotton candy, baby animals, horses, freshly mowed field grass, and the grease of carnival rides.
The smell of riding in a boat on a lake – outdoors smells mixed with rubber, plastic, gasoline fumes, and a whiff of smoke.
That is a whole year of great smells!!
The smell of cool, crisp, clean air..inhaled while standing in the fire tower atop Mt. Glastonbury in Vermont. On an an early October day.
Lilacs…Growing up there were huge old bushes right outside of my bedroom window. I loved that smell. I still do to this day.
Since you didn’t mention Connecticut, here’s what I know from living here my entire life:
1. The smell of the earth when it defrosts in March/April, especially on a rainy day. It’s a sour/wormy smell. Not really pleasant, but New England all the same.
2. The smell of Hyacinths being given to Mom and Nan on Easter Sunday
3. Lilacs… Oh definitely lilacs.
4. Grandma’s whitest sheets hanging on the line… Summer, cotton, and sunshine.
5. Low tide on the shoreline… sun shining down on seaweed and millions of small creatures scurrying to safety. Again, not a really pleasant smell, but memorable just the same.
6. The smell of crushed marigold foliage as you plant them on your family’s grave plots.
7. The smell of “pumpkin guts” as you carve your Jack-O-Lanterns.
8. All the kitchen smells of Thanksgiving.
9. The smell of the air during your first real snowstorm in December.
10. Balsam, from your Christmas Tree.
I agree pumpkin is a great smell.
The heavenly scent of boiling maple sap condensing into maple syrup! Cider donuts and, of course, lilacs!
It has been decades since I grew up on Boston’s North Shore and I now live in Colorado. I can’t think of summer without sniffing for the familiar smell of Sea and Ski lotion. Even the memory of that smell wafting across the beach remains with me whenever I think of warm summer days along the beach.
Lilacs, snowfall, Northern Spies, balsam, mud, November woodsmoke, dry fallen leaves, boiling sap,
Mud, that’s a good one in April in Maine. Also the smell of dog poop when the snow melted. ????
I loved hearing the pure joy everyone experienced by means of our sense of smell. “Every good gift and every perfect present is from above….” A quote from a book I read, of course, the Bible. This is a beautiful article – it brought me closer to our loving generous Creator. Thanks! Barb
Papermills? Ugh!!!! There used to be one in some small town in North Carolina that we went through to get to Wilmington. My little brother used to get sick in the car every time we drove through there! I was terrified of going through that town! Money or no money, it was NOT a good smell!
Yes, one smell I don’t miss !
The smell of a real clam bake cooking then being uncovered, the steam, with it’s many scents, teasing your senses.
How about June pinks?
The roses of Cliff Walk. Newport, R.I.
Before it closed, I loved the smell of the Wonder Bread factory that was in Framingham, MA.
My favorite scent is the smell of the ocean while standing on the rocks at Pemiquid Point.
EVERYTHING about Pemaquid Point is special ! My family rented one of Thompson’s cottages for the month of August every year in the 1950’s. the smell of Seaweed ar low tide? Awesome.
I am surprised no one mentioned the aroma of ripe Concord grapes on the vine. We used to pick them in the fall so my mother could put up grape jelly for the winter.
Sounds (and smells) wonderful,hope one day I can experience the smells first hand
I love the smell of the ocean. When I was a kid, and there was an East wind, I loved the smell of Walter Baker’s chocolate.
My dad grew up in Dorchester near the Baker Mills
Heaven. Going to Boston on the bus you reached a point at Milton lower mills where the chocolate smell hit you. Heaven.
The smell of REAL donuts, sorry Dunkin, from the ancient machine at the Big Apple in Wrentham, Mass. Heavy, succulent little O’s with no icing or fancy titles. Don’t put the bag on your car seat, if you get that far before finishing them off.
Grew up on MA south shore.Whenever we spent a beach day at Duxbury or Falmouth,supper upon homecoming would be take- out bar pies (american pizza to the uninitiated). The smell of them basting in their ” paprus” plates and covers,freighting their fumes through their outer brown bag packaging,filling the car with an ambrosia indescribable.We would race to the table rip them open and burn the roofs of our mouths in a feasting frenzy. Nowadays the pies are different and the packaging is modernized,but that special aroma exists in memory,to occasionally bubble up and transport me to a kind of heaven.
Fresh cut watermelon…I love that smell
I love the smell of fresh thyme growing among the flagstones in my herb garden as I step on it!
One of the suggestions was campfire smoke. For me that is the best also, but my absolute favorite has a couple additional smells mingled in with the campfire smoke! Have fond memories of taking an early morning walk at the campground and it had the smell of a beautiful dewy early morning damp forest smell, coupled with campfires wafting along with coffee, bacon and New England maple syrup. Just nothing like it! Unique to the mountains and absolutely wonderful!!
The scent as I opened my favorite sweet treat: maple sugar candy!
I like aromas that draw you back in time to related sounds and long lost friends and relatives. I’m recalling the smell of an old woodshed in Lyndon Ctr VT. I was only a tot on a rope handled swing, but the rhythmic tide at each end of my arc has lingered ever since. Entering a really ancient store with its uneven floors gives hints of what I’m trying to describe. Muffled voices from distant conversations rush back too……….
Excellent! Uneven floors especially quaint…!
My favorite smell is a Cape Cod gift shop on a rainy day. I think it’s the cranberry candles.
The smell of bread baking at the, I think, Sunbeam Bread bakery as you rode into Providence on Allens Ave.
The epitome of a great smell: Lilacland in Pelham, MA. When you get out of your car you get gobsmacked by the heavy, marvelous scents. Plural, because there are many varieties, each with its own personality.
I totally agree with the smell of the ocean from Pemaquid Point.
The lilacs in New England cannot be replicated anywhere else
Oh, how I miss them both!
To me, nothing smells like Springtime until that first whiff of hyacinths that floats on the crisp air. Their fresh hardy stalks push up through the snow sometimes. The heavenly scent can only compete with the smell of autumn leaves.
I’ve been away from New England for way too long, but I do remember the smell of burning fall leaves after my dad or mom raked the leaves off the lawn and then burned them.
How about the musky odor of June pinks?
I lived in Mass for 72 years and I still remember all of the smells of fall. WE now live in the desert of Arizona and there is not much of a scent to dirt.
60 years of sand in my toes, lilacs & the ocean breezes, top down cruising the back roads & beaches of Dartmouth, New Bedford, & Fairhaven in my Corvette. Nothing here for me in Tucson, AZ Homesick!
The smell of a pot of baked beans in the oven, and incidentally driving past the B&M plant in Portland when the wind and timing is right.
Wood smoke on a cold winter evening!
I was going to say the exact same thing. Do you remember Nissans bakery. The smell of the bread was everywhere! Also that brown bread that came in a can. I lived in Freeport for 25 years.
HONEYSUCCLES, DANDILIONS
Atwood smoke on a cold November evening. Also getting into bed with sheets that have been line dried on a sunny windy day
Best smell of all is the lilacs. Second best is The balsam trees.
When I was visiting my Aunt Anne in Manchester, New Hampshire, I was a little
boy 1953, one evening around six in August she took the family to lake Mazzabezic for a picnic supper, I can still smell the pine scent in the cool
evening breeze, so meaningful to me and a moment I enjoyed and enjoyed
sitting with my family at picnic tables and such a gift given to me of a special
time in New Hampshire, thank you. George Singletary, Basking Ridge, New Jersey
The smell of privet hedge blossoms on the Cape…that is definitely heaven!
the smell of dry pine needles at Blue Light Cabins in West Harwich, Mass.
Well, we’re not allowed to burn fallen leaves in the fall any more, but the smell of that smoke was the best part of having to rake leaves. I don’t believe any others commented on this. Perhaps they’re not old enough to remember that ending to a regular chore.
You are so right.Every fall ,I can still remember that distinctive scent. Definitely missed.
Oh man, you are so right. One whiff of that transports me back to happier times, even though they involved blisters on my hands from raking, and crunchy bits of leaves inside my shirt from diving into the pile…
My grandfather had work horses when I was young. I loved the smell of his horses and my grandmother always had oatmeal bread and molasses cookies baking. Such wonderful memories. I remember her clombing sweet pea vines, too! Heavenly aroma!!
Just the autumn air alone is fantastic !!!
the smell of the caramel-corn from the shop on the street above filled the subway below at Central Square in Cambridge. No one knows what Spring smells like until they’ve experienced a Spring in New England. The smell of hot pine needles in the sun. The smell of spiced crab apples when my mother was canning, and the smell of fresh-baked bread when coming into the house on a crisp fall day.
One of my favorite scents is the smell of beach rose, I think. As soon as I get off the boat in Block Island, I rush out of Old Harbor for that first big whiff.
Ahhhhh….
Lilacs; multiflora rose flowers in June; the smell of salt and suntan lotion on my beach stuff; peonies; freshly cut cedar; seaweed on the shore and the ocean; pine needles
An oak grove in the fall. I could never figure out just where the smell was coming from — bark? fallen leaves? acorns? the earth? — but it was unmistakable.
You know that the winter is coming when you got a whiff of burning leaves in the fall. Then to go inside and the smell of a fresh baking apple pie dominates your “indoor senses”! Now retired and living here in Florida, the reminicence of life in New England afforded by New England Today is priceless!! Thanks for the memories!!!! Les and Deb
Anyone old enough to remember the piggery in Waltham just to the west of 128 near Winter Street back in the 50’s? You needed to roll up the windows when passing through that area!
Yes, but not one I care to remember 🙂
Clam boils in my grandfather’s backyard, with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all around. The scent of clams, melted butter, lobster, linguica, link sausage, white fish, freshly shucked corn – as close to heaven as I can remember anything.
Apple cider donuts fresh out of the oven !
I was born on May 30, 1958, smack dab in the middle of lilac season on Bowdoin, Maine! So every year Mother Nature gave be a beautifully scented birthday gift! I also love the smell of balsam which reminds me of wreaths and the gift shops in Acadia National Park! One other smell of Maine isn’t necessarily exclusively ours, but between our cabin on Lambert Lake and the numerous (and mostly gone) state operated Picnic Areas, the scent of an outhouse (either one or two holers) brings back memories of Maine as well!
For me it is the smell right before it snows…there is a certain odor or the air feels different. Also, sunny crisp Fall days, the woods, a marsh, pine needles in the sun, fried clam dinner, first bite of early Macs.