I lost my sense of taste.

The strangest thing just happened to me. I've been sick since Friday, with a cough and recently my nose getting all stuffed up. Today I got home, had lunch and then had a nap. Or rather, I tried to nap. I lay on the bed for about 40 minutes listening to music, my nose getting stuffier because I was horizontal, until finally I decided to get up and have dessert.

My mom made orange chiffon cake. I cut two thin slices, sandwiched them with some cherry jam in the middle, made a little bit of hot chocolate, sat down at the table and took a bite.

Nothing.

It didn't taste like anything. The texture of the cake was very fluffy, it felt nice and moist and was great against the cold, slightly-lumpy jam. The hot chocolate was warm, and sort of thick. Quite creamy. But I couldn't taste anything. NOOOO!!! My dessert! Damn.

Partly curious, partly disappointed and partly annoyed at the fact that my dessert was ruined beyond repair, I turned my attention to the salt shaker on the table, right in front of me. I put a bit of salt in the palm of my hand. Okay, I can taste that. It tastes like salt. Back to the cake. Nothing. Salt? Still salty. Salt on cake? Nothing. How about some Swiss chocolate? Oh, great, now this I can tas– no. Wait. It feels creamy and rich, and melty and lovely, but it doesn't taste like anything. NOOOO! NOT THE CHOCOLATE!!

I finished up my food (I'd already spread it with jam, after all), went upstairs and whined to my mother (I can't taste anything swee-eeet...!). She told me to go to bed. I was about to, too, when something occurred to me: this could be a learning experience.

I went back into the kitchen. The verdict on the cake was the same. Tasteless. Broccoli? Nope, but a very nice crunch. Peanut butter was very interesting; it felt like peanut butter, but it tasted like nothing except it was a tiny, tiny, tiny bit salty. A peek at the ingredients: the last one is salt.

It was very eye-opening. I realized that taste isn't as prominent as I thought it was. I went around sampling different foods, and each one felt like it was at 80%. Like I was eating in black and white. I could almost taste these foods, almost, but it's like they were faceless. I had to pause while I was chewing and try to find the taste, only I couldn't. I tried:

A pecan: a bit chewy, kind of buttery. Melty, almost. Very nice.

Salted cashew: tasted like salt. Lots of salt. Ick.

Pita chip: I thought that these would taste like salt the way the cashews did, but they just got mushy as I chewed and didn't feel very appetizing.

Cocoa powder: It doesn't feel like dust or anything. It's okay. Not great, definitely. But maybe that's because I'm trying to remember how it tastes while I try it.

Applesauce: This was my favourite texture. It was cold, and not completely smooth. Not creamy, but not watery either. Not too congealed.

At this point it occurred to me that even salty foods didn't taste like themselves. I could only taste the salt.What if salt isn't a flavour? What if it's a feeling? I decided to try other food with strong "feelings". Starting with alcohol.

Midori liqueur: It doesn't smell like anything, just like the others; I thought I'd be able to smell the alcohol. I poured a bit into the lid and tasted it. EW. This was the most revolting thing I had while my taste buds were knocked out (and I tried vinegar next, mind you). It was horrible.

Vinegar: The next obvious step. Again, no smell. It feels strong, but doesn't taste bad. Very curious, I poured about a teaspoonful into a little mug and drank it. Okay, that was stupid. It's acid and burned my throat. Funny, it almost does taste vinegary. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is as close as I've come to flavour sor far.

After I burnt my throat, I decided to go the safe route and had a frozen blueberry. That's funny. Besides the texture, it did kind taste faintly of blueberry. Is blueberry a feeling? No way. I ate another. Blueberry!

The vinegar somehow jolted my system into perceiving tastes again. Who would've thought? I only regret that I didn't get to try anything spicy.

But seriously, this was amazing. It wasn't the way I would have imagined, and nothing was bland. Separating taste from texture made me realize –and this is weird– that a lot of the characteristics of food that I attributed to taste actually belong to texture.

Milk still felt like milk and peanut butter still felt like peanut butter, but some things were more appetizing than others, such as the applesauce being about 100 times better than the alcohol. The pecan was better than the pita chip. The cocoa powder was better than the broccoli. And these are all things that I enjoy normally, but I didn't compare before because they were so different. Yet now they're all sort of on the same level. There's nothing different between the applesauce and the pita chip, except for my memories of their tastes.

One interesting thing that I noticed was that fatty foods (the pecan, the nut butter, the milk, the chocolate) felt a lot better than everything else, except the applesauce, which was only because the latter was cold.

The most surreal thing of all, however, was knowing that the taste was there. I just couldn't perceive it. Also not being able to say that such-and-such food was "tasty" or "yummy". It was just "nice" or "not nice".