What’s fun to eat when you can’t taste or smell?

July 9, 2023 7:26 PM

I finally got Covid, and after two rough days feel more like myself. Except that my senses of taste and smell are mostly gone. What will I enjoy eating until they return?

Cooking and eating are usually great sources of joy for me, but it turns out that meal planning is uninspiring when I can’t take flavor into account. What did you eat that was surprisingly satisfying when you couldn’t smell or taste?

posted by la glaneuse to Food & Drink (27 answers total)

You can do the one chip challenge and feel like a boss!
posted by Juniper Toast at 7:31 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

If I couldn’t taste I would eat the blandest healthiest food possible- just get allll the nutrients and fibre with no concern about enjoying it. I’d eat beans and liver, two healthy foods I dislike!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:41 PM on July 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

I’d lean into the things you can sense, temperature and texture. Cold, frosty, thick things? Texture preference varies a lot by person, but whatever sounds nice. Toast with butter. Crusty bread. Fresh fruit.
posted by momus_window at 7:48 PM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

There was a spiced chickpea soup recipe originally developed for people on chemo (so stronger layered flavours), but it's delicious even when you can taste/smell:

Spiced Chickpea Soup

SERVES: 2
PREP: 10 min,
COOKING TIME: 30 min,
INGREDIENTS:
Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cinnamon
400g can chickpeas, drained
500ml vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Two bunches Spinach, chopped
Handful of coriander leaves, to serve
Natural yoghurt, to serve

METHOD:
In a large saucepan over a medium heat add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and let it heat.
Add the onion and garlic and cook gently for 8–10 minutes until soft, translucent and a little caramelised.
Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric and cinnamon, and fry gently for another minute or so until the spices are nicely fragrant. Take care not to let it burn.
Add the drained chickpeas, then follow with the stock, and bring everything up to a steady simmer.
Let it bubble away for about 20 minutes or until the chickpeas have softened and absorbed the flavour of the spices.
Remove from the heat.
Season well with salt and pepper, and then add the chopped spinach, stir though until wilted.
Serve with a good spoonful of natural yoghurt and coriander served on top.
posted by many-things at 7:49 PM on July 9, 2023 [9 favorites]

Things with good texture! Do you like crunchy things? Crispy things? Things with chew? Things that melt on the tongue? Consider variety, or things with mixed textures to keep it interesting.
posted by past unusual at 8:00 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Gummy bears for the chew!
posted by qwip at 8:08 PM on July 9, 2023

I also lost my sense of smell and taste when I caught covid, but I went the opposite direction. I existed on gatorade and soylent because I didn't have the energy to deal with cooking or cleaning up.

I ended up having an enduring aversion to soylent particularly (no big loss) - so maybe consider not having your favorite foods until your sense of taste and smell return?

Wishing you a quick recovery!
posted by Space Kitty at 8:25 PM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

I still had my umami sense ,so chicken soup still tasted good. The issue was that the top of my esophagus HURT, unlike a regular sore throat all over the back, so I didn't want to swallow much.
posted by brujita at 8:34 PM on July 9, 2023

I lost my sense of taste from covid for a solid 4 months, and I'm not the kind of person that can go months on end existing on soylent or protein shakes. I am very much in the "craves variety" camp, and this is what worked for me:

I took the advice of a chef friend of mine to add citric acid powder or a little MSG to food and drink to kick the flavour up to a level that I could actually taste. Mandarin orange slices lightly powdered with citric acid tasted almost like actual orange again, and allowed me to notice some of the fruit's sweetness. MSG added to ramen/bone broth was also really nice and allowed the umami flavour receptors to slowly come back, and added a richness in general.

I also found that going heavy on the fats/oils in a dish helped to carry the spices better and get them to actually register on my tastebuds somewhat.
posted by Pemberly at 8:41 PM on July 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

My next-door neighbor discovered that she could now eat foods that she formerly loathed (mainly coconut). Her sense of smell/taste is back, but there was one 'aftertaste' component of coconut that she used to experience, but doesn't now -- so, my making German chocolate cake with just pecans in 1/4 of the filling turned out to be a waste of time.
posted by amtho at 9:24 PM on July 9, 2023

Experiment hard with what you can taste - sweet, sour, salt, umami? I could still taste spiciness of the chilli/pepper variety and had a lot of curries. At least it wasn't bland.

I also got really into pickles with their crunchy texture and vinegary tang. Also unfortunately chips (crisps, not hot potato chips) were still nice to eat even if I couldn't taste their flavour, again for the crunch.
posted by pianissimo at 9:33 PM on July 9, 2023

When I was in your situation recently, texture was really the main thing I responded to when I ate, though after a few days I found I could also detect 'basic' flavors like salt/sweet/sour to some degree. I ended up enjoying salads with lots of differently-textured veggies - radishes chopped into little matchsticks, fresh crisp peas, leafy greens, shaved carrot curls, etc. - either with minimal/no dressing (when I couldn't taste anything at all) or a tangy/salty vinaigrette once I started getting those basic flavors back. You could probably add some chickpeas or nuts for protein as well.

Hope you feel better (and can taste and smell better!) again soon.
posted by DingoMutt at 9:57 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m going through this right now as well. Artichokes are my fav food and even though I currently taste and smell absolutely nothing (man it’s so weird!) that I still enjoy the texture of jarred marinated artichoke hearts. Today I also ate a Chinese chicken salad that at least felt crisp and refreshing.
posted by Sassyfras at 10:02 PM on July 9, 2023

Noted internet Science Guy Hank Green also lost his sense of smell from Covid (and he talks in the linked video about the reason that losing smell makes you feel like you've also lost all taste) and took the opportunity to try a bunch of foods he hated to see if he would judge them differently. If you're otherwise feeling ok this could be an interesting experiment.
posted by anastasiav at 10:31 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

This might be the perfect opportunity to try some scotch, if you are drink alcohol. I had a bad sinus infection and was unable to taste anything for several weeks, which allowed me to actually taste some of the interesting flavours and layers in scotch - which usually just blows my head off. For real food I favoured crunchy and juicy things - yellow grapefruits were excellent.
posted by lulu68 at 12:21 AM on July 10, 2023

Texture is your friend. Now is the time to learn some of those Asian cuisines where texture is all-important: not just crunchy, but the juxtaposition of different textures, crunchy, soft, slimy, crispy, chewy and probably more I just didn't think of now.
Sichuan cooking, Korean cooking, Japanese cooking. Vietnamese cooking. Try some online recipes first and then buy some cookbooks, they will still be useful when your senses return. The Woks of Life might be a good place to begin. One thing surprised me though: I usually eat mostly vegetarian and use mushrooms as a substitute for meat in many recipes. But mushrooms were very unpleasant while I couldn't taste or smell. For some reason, I could taste something from mushrooms and it was bad. So I ate more chicken in many different configurations than normal. Like Kung Pao Chicken.

I looked in my health diary from when I had it and lost my sense of taste and smell for about two months, and was surprised to see and remember that I made a lot of vignarola, but it is a dish that has a variety of nice textures, so it makes sense. When the broad bean season ended, I used frozen edamame instead, and they worked very well.
Another thing I enjoyed was avocado on rye bread. Our rye bread is very dark and chewy, so there was a nice contrast in the consistencies of bread and fruit. It might be nice with banana on rye as well. Put some flaky salt on it. But I'm not sure wether you can get this type of bread. Maybe bake your own? . Otherwise a chewy sourdough worked well for me, too.
I can also see that I enjoyed a vegetarian shepherds pie, where the stew was made with black beluga lentils and peas. Again, there are nice contrasts of texture, the chewy lentils, the perky peas and the soft mashed potatoes, with a bit of crunch on top.
posted by mumimor at 1:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Stuff with decent texture that doesn't have a hugely strong flavour anyway might work, like a plain or cheese omelette, or mashed potatoes.

I also recently lost my sense of taste & smell during a virus that stubbornly tested negative for COVID, and it's partially returning but I know I'm missing a lot of nuance - solidarity, this sucks.
posted by terretu at 4:11 AM on July 10, 2023

Short answer: things with lots of texture and lots of whatever tiny bits of flavour you can perceive.

I just had Covid too (at long last), and when I lost my smell/taste I found salty and savoury were the things that broke through the most. For me grilled cheese sandwiches and rice noodles with gobs of soy sauce were the best things, in terms of texture and ability enjoy what I could taste of them. Cereal also, for the amount of textures in each spoonful. Vinegar broke through pretty well too and helped me get some vegetables into my body (just raw veg with vinegar or vinaigrette). Smoothies were the worst -- pure unbroken thick texture, just tasted wet, very bad. Sweet and bitter were the flavours that ran away the hardest and are coming on line now with some twisty weirdness. Coffee and soda still taste very wrong.
posted by cabbage raccoon at 4:28 AM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mayonnaise worked for me.
posted by grog at 4:56 AM on July 10, 2023

Nthing texture. I really liked nachos when I last had Covid, with the crunchy chips, creamy cheeses, cold tomatoes, etc. Crisp and crunchy salads were good too.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 5:46 AM on July 10, 2023

I got the spiciest Indian food I could get my hands on, plus some chili momo (dumplings) that normally can take paint off a boat. I could kinda taste them!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:09 AM on July 10, 2023

Durian. Just so you can tell people you did.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:52 AM on July 10, 2023

Personally I would agree with nouvelle - personne upthread in saying just eat bland nutritious food. When I had Covid I ate a lot of textured, savory food and I could kind of taste it from memory, but not really. Then when I recovered, all the foods I ate when I had no sense of smell started to taste weird to me. Now there’s a whole cohort of foods I really can’t eat any more. I kind of feel nauseated even thinking about them.

TLDR Covid ruined some of my favorite foods for me
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:24 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

High fat chicken broth with rice and chili oil, with cold sliced cucumbers on the side.
posted by happy_cat at 10:04 AM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

PopRocks or popping boba.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:30 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nows the chance to try Surströmming and similar!
posted by TheAdamist at 3:25 PM on July 10, 2023

I lost my sense of smell from a concussion over two years ago. I was completely anosmic for about 6 months, and then about 5% of my sense of smell returned. I never lost my sense of taste. You say that you your sense of smell and taste are "mostly gone". I know what that is like. For example, I can now smell garlic, and I can taste honeydew. So I lean into those - I add garlic to anything where it won't make it bad. I drink melon bubble tea as a treat.
But, as most above have noted, I go to textures. I really like making Neapolitan style pizza, with the combination of crusty, chewy, cheesy, gooey. Yum! I have also taken advantage of not being able to taste things I previously didn't like. I can now eat cereals and cookies that have coconut in them without gagging.
Fresh bread (Montreal style bagels fresh from the oven, fresh baguette, buttery croissants, etc.) are still highly enjoyable, mostly from a texture perspective. I go for apples that are super crisp, and then enjoy the sweetness (but the flavour differences between varietals has vanished). Hopefully your senses will return. My sense of smell is likely permanently diminished.
posted by birdsquared at 12:28 AM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]