A Matter of Taste

One of the fun side effects of my little food-allergy-adventure is that I don't have much in the way of a sense of taste anymore.  I can still smell, and I can sort of taste things as I swallow, sort of, but anything that involves the tip or top or sides of my tongue?  Nothing.  Which has led to a sort of interesting exercise in "What's worth eating when you can't taste it?"

As you might imagine, most of it comes down to texture and temperature.  Warmth is still very nice (especially as I have a raspy throat at the moment) so I'm drinking a lot of aromatic tisanes (if you can't taste 'em you may as well smell 'em).  But spicy sort of sucks, because there's none of the flavor, just a very unpleasant burning sensation.  Apples are no good, and much to my chagrin I discovered that my beloved Mighty Bowl is pretty non-appetizing without flavor (apparently I really don't like the texture of rice).  Yogurt is unpleasant, cheese is neutral, scrambled eggs are tolerable, saurkraut is actually pretty good because I can get more of a sense of the taste.  But winter squash is fantastic, because even if I can't fully appreciate the taste, I can fully appreciate the silky, mouth-filling texture.  Crushing things like fresh herbs between my teeth (cilantro and fennel, to name the two I've noticed) seems to work moderately well- I think because a lot of that comes down to scent.

I do hope my sense of taste comes back soon.  I feel like it will be difficult to eat a well-balanced diet without it, because I take four bites of whatever and am done- just enough to shut my stomach up.  I could probably just switch over to nutrient-drinks and call it good, if this keeps up.  Which really sounds like a terribly unpleasant way to live, given how much of our culture, socializing, and bonding is tied up in food and its preparation (especially amongst my nearest and dearest).  Still, I can't wholly regret this episode (going on for about a week now) as it's given me some insight into a different way of life, and that's all any writer could hope for (because when you're a writer, literally anything and everything can count as research).