Food writers Ryan Riley and Kimberely Duke, co-founders of Life Kitchen, a not-for-profit cookery school for people whose taste has been affected by cancer treatment, have put their heads together again to tackle a new project: a cookbook for those with parosmia, a symptom of Covid-19.

What’s parosmia?

Parosmia is a distorted sense of smell, which many people who contract Covid-19 suffer from, sometimes for months after infection if they are afflicted with long Covid. It can make everyday things like vegetables and coffee taste repulsive.

This can be a devastating experience, but Riley and Duke are on the case with their new cookbook, Taste & Flavour. The pair have been experimenting with food flavors since 2018, but to create this new cookbook, they “had to flip what we knew about writing recipes on its head,” Riley said.

To start out, they consulted food scientists, who recommended that they combine the five flavor elements: aroma, umami, texture, layering, and trigeminal food sensations (the tingling sensation from spices) to invent their meals.

A flip through Taste & Flavour will reveal an array of dishes including a fiery tomato soup with sesame seed butter toast and veggie pineapple tacos with red peppers and feta.

Gillian Dixon has been experiencing anosmia, the loss of smell, for almost an entire year, and she was one of the first people to try the recipes in the book. According to her, “the recipes are absolutely brilliant… [and] really stimulate your tastebuds.”

To try out the recipes for yourself, download Taste & Flavour for free here.

Source Image: Life Kitchen