…COVID and the curse of frisky taste buds.
For a couple of years I’ve been experimenting in my little kitchen with what home-cooked food could be, even with unforeseen restrictions and limited resources. But really all meals should be heavenly, nutritious, and fresh – I mean everything from elemental servings and small snacks to ceremonious productions and precious, artisanal masterpieces. All of them. In a perfect world we would have been systemically provided with, conditioned to, and enchanted by good food since birth. But that’s not where we are as a species. Bounty is a rare commodity on this planet, despite our giant supermarkets and endless intersections of fast food joints. Gluttony and bounty are not synonymous.
All good intentions aside, along comes our sense of taste – a highly personal attribute that is also wildly manipulated by culture and economics. To reconcile that tension, we often engage in playful food wars. Do you ever sit in a restaurant with your menu perched high so you can scan the room for the most wonderful plate? You want to order the best thing on the menu. Food pride. Then your plate arrives and you wish you’d made a different choice. Food envy. Of course you remedy this by convincing your partner to “share bites” and commandeer a second plate. Food lust. But then you resent that foreign fork reaching across the table for their reciprocal sample. Food greed. I could go on with all seven deadly sins, but it always ends with a wafer thin mint. (h/t Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life)
I’ve led with all of this because I now have renewed perspectives on flavor, taste, and appetite. 42 months from the first reported symptoms in Wuhan, three years to the day after the two-millionth U.S. COVID-19 case, and many moons since the last of my five jabs of Dolly Parton’s finest vaccine, it finally got me. There’s no mystery or intrigue here. My number was simply up despite an admirable run of super-spreader dodging. This whole time I secretly welcomed the antisocial isolation and even when I did venture out I was endowed with an enormous amount of stupid, good luck. Without placing blame on any particular older offspring, the virus came to me rather than the other way around.
All four members of my little family went down consecutively, of course, and I was “lucky” enough to experience the joy of both caregiver and patient. All things considered my bout was mild; I had a week of flu-like symptoms followed by a long, annoying head cold. It certainly could have been worse.
Actually it was a little worse. My sense of taste was almost entirely decimated – it was debilitating. I’m serious, this wasn’t just a massive hole in my life’s rhythm, it was an aggressive loss. I was pissed, but carried on as if I could scream through the void. Some meals might have been a bit below standard. My eggplant dip was nicknamed the Salt Lick, Father’s Day Thai night was littered with chiles so spicy that only I survived the third course, and I learned that lemon salad dressing can, in fact, be waaaaay too lemony. But that puckering thrill of a little/lot of lemon zest gave me reason to eat what otherwise would have been a bowl of weeds.
The good news is that once I began following recipes to the letter, even nose blind everything worked out fine. For some reason this was the moment I decided to make Braciole for the first time. Mercifully, Food Taster threw his arms around me declaring it was one of the best things I’ve made all year. He desperately needed to get back in good graces, but I do trust his picky flavor judgment. Still, it tasted red to me.
As my senses slowly returned to duty, Blackened Salmon with White Cheddar Grits turned out to be on point, although I admit I tossed in some jalapeños with the bacon to ensure I’d get some sort of a hit. Even in the throws of infirmity, I conjured a giant skillet chocolate chip cookie and an extremely dirty Vodka martini, both of which teased my latent taste buds to attention. At the very least I knew one was crazy-sweet and the other ridiculously briny, and yes, they paired beautifully. It was a final attempt to jumpstart my system – mission accomplished. When I was cleared to leave the house I went on a pepper-seeking operation which zipped up the remainder of my June dinners so I could actually taste them. Fajitas are always a hit so everybody in the house won this round.
Chicken Fajitas
Ingredients
- 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp Mexican oregano
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 Tbs olive oil
- Zest and juice of 1 lime
- A menagerie of mixed peppers, sweet to hot, about 6-8
- 1 large onion
- 2-3 Tbs avocado oil, divided
- Corn or flour tortillas
- Lime wedges for serving
- Your choice of toppings such as guacamole, queso fresco, chopped lettuce, chopped tomatoes, salsa, chopped fresh cilantro, more onions, Monterey Jack cheese, etc.
Method
Trim and pound flat the chicken breasts to about ½” thick. Slice into long ½” strips. Set aside in a large bowl.
Mix the paprika through cayenne pepper in a small bowl to create the seasoning rub.
Drizzle the chicken strips in olive oil, lime juice & zest, and add the rub, massaging all the strips to coat. Allow to sit covered for 20 minutes while you prep the veggies, or refrigerate for a couple of hours.
Thinly slice the peppers into ¼“ X 3” strips. I used 2 anaheims, 3 chilacas, 1 large yellow and 1 large orange Italian sweet pepper.
Warm your tortillas in the oven and wrap in a towel to keep warm.
Heat a large, heavy skillet to medium and add avocado oil. Sauté onion until soft, about 4 minutes, then add peppers and toss. Continue to cook until tender-crisp. Remove onion-pepper mix to a bowl and cover to keep warm.
Add more oil to the skillet if needed and increase heat to medium-high. Add chicken strips and sear until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. If the pan gets too dry, add a ¼ cup of water.
When the chicken is fully cooked, return the peppers to the skillet and mix well.
Add spoonfuls of chicken to tortillas, adorn with your choice of toppings, and indulge.
I’ve often written about taste and flavor, mostly through the lens of my somewhat emotional relationship with food, which is admittedly, um… robust. Since my house was already a quarantined Petri dish last month, I decided to play scientist, specializing in biologic neurogastronomy. Keeping emotions out of the equation, I considered only the physical ability to taste, or not. Apparently there are three types of tasters: supertasters, medium-tasters, and non-tasters. These all refer to a person’s taste perception and the intensity at which they experience sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and my fave, umami. Having spent a few weeks as a non-taster and suffered greatly from withdrawal, I assumed it meant I normally have hyperactive tastebuds and tend to indulge as a result of that extra-sensory advantage. After all, I’m a lifetime, card-carrying member of the Clean Plate Club. I thought to myself, “well duh, of course I’m a supertaster.”
I am not.
Supertasters tend to crave salt over sugar, dislike fatty foods, are very sensitive to the bitterness of many vegetables, and are not fans of the acidity of coffee. They are leaner (I should have led with that) and less interested in food. None of these ***takes a long sip of coffee*** describe me.
This past month I convinced myself that if everybody tasted what I taste, the way I taste it, with the same onslaught of emotionally-charged delight, I wouldn’t be writing this blog at all. I think I’m an average taster who just loves, loves, loves food.
Ps. Taste is slowly coming back.
Foodishness 