Maybe 5 years ago I was hanging out with a buddy and we took an angle grinder to an empty propane tank. When we were finished, we smelled uniquely awful. It turns out that added to propane is a tiny amount of the odourant Ethyl Mercaptan. Now when you’re using propane you get just enough of a whiff of it to remind you that you’re using propane, but if you get a smell of the inside of an empty propane tank? Well, something about the liquid propane residue that remains, some miracle of science and chemistry, creates a density of Ethyl Mercaptan that is shocking. Room-fillingly shocking. Clothes throwing away shocking. Many showers worth of shocking.
A couple years ago I had my first “truffle” experience with some truffle cheese and was like cutting back into that propane tank. Not the same in scale, but certainly in type. Tremendously similar smells. Since then I’ve been sad and thought I just managed to ruin truffles for myself. This article has given me hope.