Written on 30/09/2020
Post-virus chronicles
Over the past few months, this French way of life that we took for granted has been put to the test. Travel has been restricted, small shops closed and hugs banished. Evenings out with friends, family celebrations and tender gestures are now viewed with suspicion. A disease whose contours are not yet clear is seriously affecting our pleasures and freedoms. We save a few jacket sleeves that no longer get wet on the counter, and let our best bottles go to sleep, destined for moments of fearless sharing...
And that's just for the lucky ones. The most unfortunate will, despite all the precautions in the world, have caught the damn virus and experienced agueusia and anosmia. Words as unpleasant in the mouth as what they actually define: the loss of taste and smell. Deprived of two of the five senses, it's not like in the movies: the other three don't develop! We find ourselves in a world without flavors. Some, like me, will have experienced this loss of taste at a Michelin-starred table. Please don't laugh...
We eat and drink simply to survive. No more pleasure in the mouth, no more scent of slow-cooked dishes in sauce... For lovers of gastronomy and fine wines, what a bore! So we resign ourselves and eat pasta, because... what's the point?! Vegetables and fruit without salt or sugar, glasses filled with a flat, colorless liquid: water! On evenings when the grief is too great, we put a bottle of wine on the table, but just for decoration... In memory of the blessed time when our palate recognized Romanée-Conti.
And then, like everything else, good or bad, it eventually passes. You find yourself recognizing the cucumber in the middle of a salad full of nothing. Weopen the bottle of whisky on the shelf, smell it, and... miracle! It's back! We restart the diary, invite a friend and beg him not to come empty-handed. Shower me with new wines, my taste buds are making a comeback!
We order a case of wine, savoring the sensations that are returned to us as inexplicably as they were taken from us! We make resolutions: no more piquette, no more bad cocktails, only good stuff! The lesson is clear: taste is too precious a sense not to cherish and spoil!
