texture, temperature, taste, and smell

I'm still stuck in the sensory netherworld when it comes to smell and taste. But not completely: I ordered a jar of mat-kimchi from Coupang, and if I put my nose right up to it and take a long whiff, I can barely smell something. So strong aromas can break through the COVID-imposed barrier, but nothing less than kimchi will do the trick.

When I mentioned, before, that I'd be concentrating more on things like texture and temperature, I wasn't joking. With the food I Coupang'ed to tide me over during my self-isolation, I have indeed been trying to savor these aspects of eating. I can't say that I've gained any deep insights from the exercise, but I think that, if/when I do recover my taste and smell, I'll appreciate my food a bit more deeply.

In terms of the quantity of food I'm eating while in this state, I'd have to say that random snacking is down to almost zero. This doesn't mean I simply have no desire to eat: I get hungry, and I'm eating somewhere in the 1600-2200-calorie range—one meal a day except for two fruit cups in the late evening. Since I'm eating food that's familiar to me, I also experience a kind of "taste-echo" of the food, undoubtedly from memory, so while I'm not actually tasting the food in the moment, my memory is supplying a whisper of that gustatory experience. That's not nearly as satisfying as actually tasting my food, but you work with what you've got. When I eat those fruit cups, there is some vague, cellular awareness that I'm downing something sugary, but nothing at the level of the tongue.

I'll muck through this, I'm sure. When I wrote about my condition in an Instapundit open thread, one person replied that loss of smell/taste went on for four weeks with someone he knew. It's just a matter of waiting this out. I waited out my toe wound for nine months, so this should be nothing in comparison.