I work in cell culture, which means that we grow immortalized cell lines in specialized media that has everything in it the cells need to survive. It's a scientific-sounding soup with amino acids, vitamins, sugars, salts, and some other things that sound really appetizing like "putrescine". All of which are nice, well-behaved powders on their own.
Then you put the cells in, wait two weeks, and in the end it smells like crap.
Well, not exactly like crap, if you know what I mean. But not good. It's even worse when you have a bacterial contamination and they're putting their own smell in there.
And when you work in cell culture, you have to deal with the smell all the time. Every time you finish a culture you have to pour out the junk and clean the container. Recently there was an episode where one of my project teams was waiting outside a conference room and a cart full of used glassware went by. Everyone else gagged at the smell but I didn't react. The project lead commented on it, and I had to reply that I think I must breathe through my mouth automatically at times like that. I've had long training.
But as blase as I am about the smells, there's one thing I won't do. I won't compare them to food.
Sure, one type of media looks like fruit punch. Another looks like apple juice. But I won't compare the smells to food. I keep catching myself halfway through a thought - like "Hmm, this smells like--no no no stop there".
And today's lunch meeting was the perfect example why. The lunch meeting food was ribs, corn, beans, and cornbread. I took a bite of cornbread, thought it tasted kind of unpleasant, but also really familiar. And then it struck me. It tasted like cell culture.
And that was it. I didn't eat any more lunch.
The thought still horrifies me.
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