People say this a lot, but I’m very skeptical whether it matters much if you never had smell to begin with. I have had no real sense of smell for as long as I can remember but I’m a more than competent cook. This would be very contradictory if smell was truly essential to the experience. I can believe that it’s important if you had it and lost it, but I don’t think smell is essential to taste in general. (However, I do agree with GP that it feels like I’m missing a major piece of human experience.)
As someone who has had the ability to smell go away and come back, I can confirm that smell is important for taste, but not the way it is often described.
For me, I can taste the “basic components” of flavor, but smell is necessary to add nuance/complexity.
> I don’t think smell is essential to taste in general
Depends on the ingredient. Some, like cinnamon, rely more on the sense of smell, while with others it doesn't matter much. In the end other senses always have some kind of effect on it, even if it's just the placebo kind.
