Spicy-Sweet Pumpkin SeedsCooking Debauchery
One of my earliest and most profound sense memories was the smell of roasting sunflower seeds.
On crisp autumn days you could smell them for miles.
Through the chill bite of wind the scent of roasting nut meats brought with it a sort of warmth, an eddying respite. Bemittened and freezing it was difficult, especially as a small child to not follow those perfumed eddies back to the source.
In my memory the sunflower seed vendor was always hidden right around the next corner. Just where the smell became so overwhelming that you thought you might die of hunger right on the spot if you could not taste one of those precious pods with their crunchy nutmeats.
They were almost always women. Older women; bundled up in scarves with their faces careworn and sad.