Pandemics are not a new thing – read the Old Testament. Passover, the Jewish holiday falling around Easter commemorates the release of Israelites from enslavement by their Egyptian oppressors and includes a recitation of ten plagues before dinner. If you can still feast after that dire litany of inducements, apparently sent by God to convince the Pharoah to free your slave ancestors, then you know you’re living, which is the point. Called a seder, this potent reminder of how good we have it includes a symbolic plate of foods meant to remind us of how bad it was back in the day, including bitter herbs (alluding to bondage) dipped in salt water (for tears) and a mixture of fruit, nuts and wine known as charoset, representing the mortar slaves were forced to use to build high-rise cities, or the awesome pyramids they’d never be lucky enough to be entombed in. Throw in the requisite four goblets of cloying Concord Kosher wine made from lambrusca grapes sweetened with copious amounts of sugar, and you have a celebration as bitter as it is sweet.

Viewed through an electron microscope, our taste-buds are “huge as volcanoes on Mars, while those of a shark are beautiful mounds of pastel-coloured tissue paper”, as described by Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of the Senses. We taste sweet things at the tongue’s tip, while the taste receptors of butterflies are located on their front legs, prompting a sugar rush each time they alight on a nectar-laden blossom. Bitter registers at the back of the tongue, prompting a gag reflex, acting as gatekeeper against ingesting poisonous substances. Crash the two together, as in coffee sucked through a sugar cube, a Turkish delight, and we experience the irresistible thrill of bittersweet. According to Greek myth, Hades, lord of the underworld, tempted Persephone with a pomegranate, the ruby seeds of the voluptuous, earthy, astringent fruit forever tied to both abduction and the story of winter, as well as fertility and the return of spring, a bittersweet marriage indeed.

It’s not just the oral cavity that registers taste; scientists have identified taste cells in the gut, triggering the release of hormones, regulating appetite, satiety and glucose levels. Ackerman notes that “smell hits us faster than taste; smell and taste share a common airshaft”. Among the first symptoms of Covid-19 are parosmia, phantosmia and anosmia: odour distortion, olfactory hallucination and smell loss. So, it seems ironic that Reuters reports on German sniffer dogs able to detect Covid-19 with 94 per cent accuracy; we know what the virus looks like, but what, we wonder, does it smell like, to an Alsatian?

The evocative Japanese word setsunai is defined as the joy inherent in the knowledge that everything is temporary. It may feel like everything was so long ago, but our take on this last year may depend on where the virus has landed. Like the unique aroma of puppy breath or the taste of dark chocolate on the tip of the tongue or a sip of a classic Negroni as it hits the back of the throat, in which juniper-heavy gin meets cherry, cascarilla, clove, rhubarb, cinnamon and orange peel, ingredients in the Italian apéritif Campari, the past year has either dulled the senses or heightened them. Love and loss. Bitter and sweet.

1. I’M BRINGING the outside in with a limited edition Bittersweet Flowerlove print by Amsterdam-based baker and cake decorator Natasja Sadi; @cakeatelieramsterdam.

2. I’M ENTERING the realm of the senses in NEST New York’s Cocoa Woods Eau de Parfum, with essence of bittersweet cocoa wrapped in sequoia wood, white sandalwood, tiare blossom and Thai ginger.

3. I’M INDULGING in antioxidant dark chocolate from Clonakilty chocolatier www.explodingtree.com. Order a chocolover subscription for a loved one (you!).

4. I’M STUDYING ikebana, the Japanese art of fl ower arranging, with help from @itsallprettywild. Order their DIY dried flower kit and begin your own meditative practice.

5. I’M SPIKING salads with fruit-infused artisan vinegars by Armagh’s Burren Balsamics, from Irish Cherry to Blood Orange and Cardamom; www.burrenbalsamics.com.

6. I’M RECREATING coffee mornings at home with a Sage espresso machine until I can visit coffee roastery www.theoldbarracks.ie for the best brew in Birdhill and beyond!

7. I’M SPOTIFYING The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony during my daily walk, 2km and a million miles from here.

8. I’M NAILING it with Christian Louboutin The Noirs Nail Colour in shades of black like Khol, Lady Twist and Very Privé.

9. I’M BLOOMING in a delectable mini dress embroidered with 3D flowers from Oscar de la Renta’s Fall 2021 RTW collection.