Cooking and Eating Without Taste or Smell

A few months ago, I slowly began losing my sense of taste. My taste has been altered ever since the transplant, which I expected as a typical post-transplant side-effect that varies from person to person in its type and severity. I also was more prepared than the average transplant recipient because of having gone through chemo before, which also typically alters one’s sense of taste. My friends know well my long-standing love of peanut butter and my sweet tooth, which I often combine in such ways as plopping big scoops of peanut butter over vanilla ice cream and drizzling the entire concoction with chocolate sauce. Interestingly enough, I lost my craving/taste for both peanut butter and sweets after doing chemo eight years ago and again after the transplant.

I expected my taste to be altered, and it was for several months, but slowly foods began resuming their normal taste. However, about three months ago, my sense of taste and smell started to fade. My loss of taste was much more noticeable than my sense of smell, but it was also gradual, so that strong flavors (e.g. coffee or Cheddar cheese) were still perceptible even when milder, one-note flavors (e.g. milk chocolate or potatoes) were not. As someone who is a total wimp when it comes to spicy food, I learned the hard way that my taste buds were working fine when I decided to try some hot sauce on my chicken. Several glasses of water and Gatorade later (basically anything I could find to drown out the burn), I realized that I couldn’t taste because I couldn’t smell, as if I were plugging my nose while eating.

Long story short, after attributing this loss of smell and taste to everything from allergies to GVHD to aliens invading my brain, my doctors are at a loss and have deemed themselves “detectives” in finding its cause. All jokes aside, please pray for my smell and taste to be restored, because I’ve been really discouraged that I can’t taste a single thing anymore, and eating is no longer enjoyable.

Trying (though often failing) to stay positive about this change, I’ve had to create a new, hopefully temporary, definition of taste based on texture and presentation rather than flavor, hence the new hobby Zack and I have developed of taking pictures of my culinary creations. I still love to cook; I just can’t taste my dishes! Luckily I have Zack as my #1 sous chef and taste-tester to prevent me from producing anything potentially gross or dangerous ;). I’ve discovered the joy of cooking for others to enjoy, which for now, will have to be enough.

Foods I’m looking forward to enjoying again when (trying to have faith here) my taste returns? Thai, fries, nachos, and peanut butter chocolate ice cream, to name a few :).