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Comment by fauria | Hacker News Reader

Jordi Roca, pastry chef from 3 Michelin star restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, designed a dessert based on the scent of old books.

He captures that characteristic smell using a technique called enfleurage, soaking an old book in a neutral fat and then distilling it using a device called Rotaval.

He then pours some drops on thin wafers that resemble book pages.

Here is a short video describing the process: https://youtube.com/shorts/zN2uHgX0rRA

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Not particularly appealing for someone dealing with the [Marikio Aoki phenomenon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariko_Aoki_phenomenon).

Walking into a library and smelling old books triggers the urge to defecate for me.

Wow, that's wild. Certain rooms do that to me. In the house where I grew up it was the upstairs room. (It wasn't the stairs themselves; no other stairs in the house did it) In our current home it's the basement. Sadly those rooms are not filled with books.

I can't tell if it's a statistically real effect. I had always told myself it was not real, but having heard of "Marikio Aoki" phenomenon for the first time just now, I'm wondering...

I have a workshop that I credit with the same effect. Every trip to the workshop is at least two trips, because I'm interrupted.

Also I associate this with gambling, no matter the stakes or the location, including locations that don't trigger any response in different contexts (like my living room).

Glad to know I'm not completely alone....

Well that's interesting, i was in a paper shop this afternoon (i love paper shops), and i suddenly wanted to go to the bathroom and realized it happens often there!

This is an incredible wtf article. It’s so absurd it has to be real, I don’t know how it could be made up.

One data point, I’ve been affected by this for decades now. I had no idea before the article that others experienced it too.

OMG. I have crohn's disease and walking into a library gives me the urge to go, consistently.

Ditto. Libraries and bookstores can be an issue.

There was movie about that process (though not with books): "Perfume, the Story of a Murderer"

I liked it.

It's also a very engaging book

Is he...OK? There's eccentric and then there's needing help

Apart from suffering from dysphonia and as far as I know yes, he is OK. He was awarded World's Best Pastry Chef in 2014 and his restaurant has been awarded either best or second best restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine (50 Best) 5 years in a row. Not sure if he needs much help, to be honest.

I wouldn't care if he won a Nobel Prize - dirty old books sound like a disgusting ingredient to use.

You really don't want to learn what you have actually ingested over the years.

Following your logic, you’ve probably accidentally ingested some faeces at some point in your life. Therefore I invite you over to my house for a 3 course meal of whatever I find at the local dog park

I'm laughing pretty hard here, that analogy makes no sense whatsoever and doesn't follow my logic at all.

Perhaps if the chef in question was serving an entire book as a meal sprinkled with some feces :)

:)! I laughed at your pathetic, reaching original reply too! :D

Did you though? Or did you get all emotional and tell me to eat shit ;)

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