Chantal's Cheese Shop

How Long COVID — and the Loss of Smell and Taste — Affects Food Professionals | Eater

"This Pittsburgh cheese shop, run by lifelong cheesemonger Anaïs Saint-André Loughran, is intimately tied to its owner’s identity and memory of cheese; after she contracted COVID she lost her sense of smell and developed parosmia, which made familiar cheeses and foods smell and taste distorted (she describes flavors like sewage and even drinking rotten milk unknowingly). The sensory loss forced her to stop tasting products for months, rethink pairings and recommendations, hire additional staff, restructure the business away from her being the sole behind-the-counter taster, and cope with imposter syndrome — while practicing olfactory retraining and slowly relearning a changed flavor landscape, sometimes liking things she previously disliked." - Lindsay Herring