Violet Ice Cream, Canned Tuna, and Quantum Mechanics

Throw the word Perfume in there and you've got my experience this weekend in Grasse, en bref.

Let's start with the violet ice cream:


My newest obsession. I don't understand why Americans haven't had the ingenuity of making flowers into flavors - many of the best things I've tasted in France have been of this category: coquelicot bonbons, orange-blossom sparkling water, candied rose petals... and of course violet ice cream. I discovered this latter wonder at a generic ice cream stand near the International Museum of Perfume in Grasse, and went back twice before discovering an even more delicious rendition at a glacier near the Place aux Aires. It is a sophisticated flavor which pairs beautifully with vanilla, and is a specialty of southern France (both the southwest - Toulouse, and the southeast - Grasse are known for their violets. The ice cream that I tasted was probably made from the grassette, a variety of violet native to the region of Grasse).


On to the canned tuna and Quantum Mechanics.
Grasse is known for its smells - it has a valid claim to the title "Perfume Capital of the World". My presence there was justified by an Aromatherapy conference (phytotherapie and aromatherapie are closely linked in France). For two days, I attended talks with titles such as "Phyto-aromatherapy in gynecology practice", "Aromatherapy and the brain," and the ambitious "Stochastic resonance: one step towards making sense of life." The latter was one of a series of lectures attempting to validate the healing powers of plants through an understanding of physical reality based upon quantum rather than classical mechanics. It was heady.

This is how science is on the other side of the Atlantic (or at least in the confines of over-intellectualizing France). The experience was made bearable by the fact that I could see the Mediterranean Sea from the balcony of the convention center during coffee breaks.


When not consuming violet ice cream or having my mind blown by the latest research on noise and neural stochastic resonance, I visited the parfumeries of Grasse - including a guided tour of the Fragonard factory - and admired thousands of perfume bottles as well as a mummified hand and foot in the Musée Internationale de la Parfumerie. This, of course, was all during daytime hours. Grasse is a medieval town built on a steep hillside, and one gets around by way of narrow pedestrian passages. I seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding myself alone in one of these dark passages, confronted by a group of loitering, twenty-year-old-something Maghrebian men. It was terrifying. I spent most evenings in the kitchenette of my rental studio, dining on canned tuna.

Luckily, it was a cool little studio. One morning, I was visited by a snail.