pungent; waif
pungent is giving off a strong smell;
waif is a homeless, lonely child or animal
Answer:
I've seen this question before, thus appealing to the correlation between ideas, "aroma" is a distinctive smell, then it would match with pungent (which describes a sharply smell) typical of spices; and the rest of the context matches with either: "urchin", "waif" or "homeless". Thereby is fair to say: "A pungent aroma..." and "hungry waif into the alley"
Explanation:
