Monday, November 30, 2009

Ginkgo Fruit

So I smelled some ginkgo fruit over the weekend in Philadelphia. And you know what? It smells like dog shit! I don't know if I've come across the fruit before (even though there are lots of ginkgo trees here), but if I did, I probably thought I stepped in something. But over the weekend, my old roommate pointed out that we were walking around ginkgo fruits and that they smelled like shit. So I picked some up and smelled them. Fascinating. Dog shit. Not cat piss. Not horse shit (that smells like Central Park South). But dog shit. Which really isn't all that offensive. I prefer it to cat piss. I wondered if anyone made an extract of it for odor use. Because you've got civet, castoreum, indole, skatole, etc..... You'd think ginkgo fruit would work in that list. I wonder if the yield is low or if it's hard to extract. More likely, it's just easier to synthesize the odor.

So there you have it: ginkgo fruit smells just like dog shit.

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