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08/20/2001 Archived Entry: "Taste"

One of the most irritating things about being ill is that your sense of taste disappears. It's trouble enough that you're ill, but at least you should be able to enjoy yourself with some good food while you're holed up at home - except for the fact that you can't taste any of it, unless it's extremely sweet or sour (and no, that does not mean that you can taste sweet and sour food, it's not the same). So spaghetti ends up tasting like bland noodles in an indistinct gooey sauce, and chicken is just some kind of textured cooked flesh without flavour.

Worst of all, though, is that this also applies to drinks. And you know what that means - it means I can't taste Ribena properly anymore! I was frankly shocked at this after I drank a glass and realised that it didn't really taste very nice and was in fact quite a bit sour. In case this was due to incorrect preparation (accidents do happen), I had a couple more glasses and the results were the same. Despondently, I gave up on the Ribena for something like two or three days - my longest ever voluntary fast of the drink.

However, I started to feel quite a bit better today and ventured a glass of Ribena. It tasted strangely sweet and wholesome. Could it be that I was regaining my taste? I tried another glass and my suspicions were confirmed - the Ribena Test had proved that my taste faculties were once again back up to scratch and all was happy with the world!