The sea, the sea

"Since my arrival I have had the pleasure of swimming naked. This rocky coast attracts, thank God, no trippers with their 'kiddies'. There is not a vestige of beastly sand anywhere. I have heard it called an ugly coast. Long may it be deemed so. The rocks, which stretch away in both directions, are not in fact picturesque. . . Below the tide line they are festooned with growths of glistening blistery dark brown seaweed which has a rather unpleasent smell. . ."

It's highly likely that, Iris Murdoch's character, Charles Arrowby, who is quoted above, was detecting dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Seaweed is a good source of this, as is shellfish. Some people attribute the smell of the sea to DMS.

I remember when I first started taking wine more seriously. Lots of strange and some familiar smells. In particular I recall drinking a South Australian cabernet, everyone else in the room could smell blackcurrant juice, and all I could smell was two day old raw mussels. I still smell mussels now and then when I drink wine, I just keep quiet about it now. . .

Today, I discover (after some random reading about seaweed) that the mussels I detect, which some people call a super ripe blackcurrant are one and the same. Dimethyl sulfide you see, is also found in wine, it's just that hard core winos often described its scent as tinned corn, cooked vegetables, cabbage or Ribena, instead of the sea, or two day old mussels!

PS. Truffles are often thought to have an otherworldly smell. Turns out this too is DMS (at least partly. . .)

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