A cookbook for those who’ve lost their taste and smell to COVID-19
On a Sunday afternoon in March 2020, Gillian Dixon was cooking roast beef for lunch, which would normally fill her home in the United Kingdom with a distinct savory scent.
That day, though, something was amiss: “I suddenly thought, ‘I can’t smell the beef,’ ” Dixon, 53, recalled.
Her concern mounted when she took a bite of the roast and couldn’t taste it.
Back then, Dixon was unaware she was experiencing a symptom of COVID-19 and that she would become a “longhauler,” with her sense of taste and smell disappearing for nearly a full year because of the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Ryan Riley is a British chef who has spent the past several months concocting an array of science-based recipes to help people like Dixon enjoy food even though their sense of smell and taste is compromised.
He co-wrote the cookbook Taste & Flavour, which has recipes that elevate flavor combinations, textures and other sensory elements that might stimulate a long-hauler’s dulled senses.
“It’s all about adding extra sensory excitement into your food,” said Kimberley Duke, a fellow chef and Riley’s childhood best friend who co-wrote the cookbook, which is free and downloadable.
With the recipes, they aim, for example, to stimulate the trigeminal nerve — which triggers sensations when eating foods like mint, wasabi and cinnamon.
They also focus on the visuals of each dish: “You can never forget how much we eat with our eyes,” Riley, 27, said. Consulting with scientists, researchers and patients, they created recipes with texture, bright colors and acidic flavors — such as veggie pineapple tacos; umami biscuits; and baked vanilla oats with cardamom, raspberry and rose syrup. Many recipes in the book are based on the work of Barry Smith, co-director of the Center for the Study of the Senses at the University of London. Smith and his colleagues research the different ways COVID-19 can alter a person’s senses. COVID-19 can cause three main types of smell and taste dysfunctions, Smith said, including: parosmia, which is a distorted sense of smell; anosmia, which is the partial or total loss of smell; and phantosmia, which is olfactory hallucination.
About 80 percent of taste depends on our sense of smell, Smith said, which is why COVID-19 patients experiencing muted smell also struggle with taste.
Some 65 percent of people who have contracted COVID-19 worldwide experience some form of smell or taste disorder, Smith said, adding that 10 percent of those cases are long-term, and 3 percent will probably be permanent. He said people understandably find it frustrating.
“People get very depressed when they lose their sense of smell,” Smith said. “The risks to mental health are great.”
For people struggling with parosmia, there are several common foods that elicit a foul smell and taste, including garlic, onions, eggs, roasted meats, coffee, chocolate and, strangely, toothpaste.
“Instead of being familiar and usually desirable aromas, the smell is disgusting. People have talked about a rotten, decayed smell,” Smith said. “People with parosmia end up resorting to things that are sugary, and they don’t get enough nutrition.”
Those with anosmia, or partial loss of taste and smell, on the other hand, can sometimes taste hints of basic flavors, like salt, lemon and sugar. Cooking with umami-rich elements — like mushrooms, cheeses and soy sauce — can activate saliva flow while boosting other flavors in a dish, Smith said.
The cookbook, which was released March 29, includes 17 recipes that emphasize texture, umami, layering and stimulating the trigeminal nerve, while eliminating common ingredients that could be offensive, like garlic and onions.
“We had to flip everything we know about creating flavor on its head,” Riley said.