Saliva production might be an unlikely topic for a regular cookery class, but our group is made up of cancer sufferers and health workers, and dry mouth, or xerostomia, along with dulled sense of taste, are frequent side effects of cancer treatment. The recipes cost up to as little as 58p per person, with many of the dishes featuring miso, which Ryan says enhances the savouriness. Other dishes in the book include a miso banana crumble, Swedish style meatballs, and spicy bean quesadillas. Ryan Riley is a food writer and founder of cancer cookery initiative Life Kitchen. He’s dedicated to creating delicious food for those living with cancer.

I mean, I’m 29, and I run Life Kitchen, and I live a relatively OK life, and even I struggle and worry about what we’re going to do next and how we’re going to pay for things. The classes at Life Kitchen last an hour and a half, with students being taught the five principles of taste and flavour. The school has also extended out to people who have lost their sense of taste due to Covid.

Sambal butter noodles

If you don’t already have one, a jar of chilli oil should be a staple in your home. You can make this one very easily (it will keep for seven to 10 days in a sealed, sterilised bottle in the fridge). Chipotle chillies are dried, smoked jalapeños and have a great depth of flavour; the red chilli flakes add an intense, fragrant heat. MAKES This book is a collection of recipes, ideas and expertise to help you on your journey towards enjoying food again. We hope you enjoy it. One of the most common COVID-19 symptoms is the loss of taste and smell. For some people, those symptoms can last weeks. Now, a new cookbook aims to help people recover some of the joy of cooking and eating – even while senses are still inhibited.

We believe that food is a big part of recovery – emotionally and physically. By focusing on flavour, we hope these new recipes help to make mealtimes more enjoyable. Chris Johnson has said Life Kitchen’s Essential Flavour cookbook is ‘crucial’ for people with cancer (Chris Johnson/PA) After Krista passed away, aged 47, Ryan wanted to ‘honour his mother’s memory and use his cooking skills to help cancer patients find flavour and pleasure in food again.’ I’ve tried to find things to do to keep me interested and give me something to do, and cooking has been one of them for the last couple of years.In 2019, he found out that he had a GIST, which is similar to a tumour, in his small bowel, that has since spread to his liver. While there is no doubt that being well nourished will aid recovery, this is not the focus for Riley. “Life Kitchen isn’t about health, it isn’t about nutrition. It’s about enjoyment – because that is what my mother would have wanted. If I’d told her she was going to a nutrition workshop, she would have told me to eff off – but if I’d told her we were going to a cookery class in a beautiful house in a park with champagne, she might have come.” And indeed, many of the classes start with wine. “People think that is weird – alcohol and cancer – but people with cancer are still living,” adds Riley. Having the recipes has really boosted my cooking ability.” Chris Johnson (left) with Ryan Riley (front) (Chris Johnson/PA) Many people who experience these symptoms are still able to taste certain flavors such as sugar, salt, lemon juice or even the bitterness of coffee, according to Smith. He said his work showed that when taste and smell are altered, other senses can help people enjoy their food with certain textures. These can include stimulating saliva with umami flavor and stimulating the trigeminal nerve, which amongst other roles, regulates spicy-food sensations like stinging, cooling or even burning. Following the success of our Ryan Riley recipe booklet, Life Kitchen and World Cancer Research Fund have collaborated again to bring you our latest recipe book, Flavour & Nutrition.

The idea of Life Kitchen is simple, but enormously persuasive. As anyone who has undergone chemotherapy will tell you, one of the most frequent and demoralising side-effects is a loss or dramatic change in the sense of taste. Life Kitchen is designed to try to help mitigate that loss, to teach cooking skills and recipes that might restore some pleasure in food, and to do so alongside others facing similar challenges. Mr Riley added that his mother had got to a point where she tried to “make all these memories of pubs and restaurants and she was sitting there disconnected from it – because it you can’t taste and enjoy the food, then it becomes a really depressing time”. The normal recipes that we'd be looking to integrate into people's lives, we can't do," Riley told CTV News in Toronto. "Things like garlic and onions and eggs, for many people with long Covid are really repulsive to them so we've had to look at how we can really rejig what food is to create a delicious recipe." Often during treatment for cancer, food can seem unappealing and many people lose their appetite altogether. There are also other nutritional and dietary complications that people with cancer can experience during treatment. This is why we created a recipe book that focuses on both nutrition and flavour.The cookbook, which was released with the help of cancer charity, The Big C, contains 15 budget-friendly recipes which use ingredients from supermarket ‘essentials’ ranges and can be easily created at home. But in removing those trigger foods like garlic and onion from recipes, another issue comes up: how do you build flavour? "I've been a cookery writer now for four years, we're told to build a recipe's flavour with garlic and onion, we've had to flip of the idea of cookery, and what we know about recipe writing on its head," says Riley. "So, we've eliminated all of those trigger foods from the recipes to make them what is known as 'safe food' and then we've added all of the principles that we use in Life Kitchen to try and elevate those safe foods to be absolutely delicious." Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in both types of chilli flake. Set it to one side and allow the contents to cool completely. Following COVID, food may taste "bland, salty, sweet, or metallic," according to the National Health Service. The NHS recommends adding adding spices, herbs, and sauces to food to improve flavour. Riley says spice and heat will always help, but it's that umami that's key. "Bringing in that deep rich savoriness when you have umami-rich ingredients, they stimulate all of the all of taste buds and your palate," says Riley. "So I would always say try and get as much of umami into your food, try to add a tablespoon of miso, a tablespoon of soy sauce, grate some parmesan over that pasta, try to really push the flavours as high and as powerfully as you can."