But it's more than just the story of her slow recovery and re-education of her olfactory sense. It's also her exploration of the biology of the sense of smell, the science behind it, and the art too.
The sense of taste is restricted to salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami (savoury), for which there are receptors on the tongue. All other flavours depend on the aromas that rise up the back of the throat to the olfactory receptors as food is chewed, so losing the sense of smell affects enormously the flavours and enjoyment of food.
Birnbaum talks to numerous psychologists, scientists, cooks and perfumers, meets a celebrated chef who lacks the sense of taste, although he can smell; and takes a course at a perfume school in Grasse, France.
Throughout we follow her reactions - depression, frustrated attempts at cooking, erratic at first because she can't taste, and excitement as she first realises she can smell rosemary.
Slowly her sense of smell returns as the damaged parts of her brain regrow, and even the smell of rubbish is interesting.
But although her sense of smell gradually returns, she has difficulty identifying the aromas. That's where a trip to the French perfume school comes in: she has to relearn the words that express these.
Her earlier dream of working in a restaurant long abandoned, she trained as a journalist.
She now edits cookbooks. Who knows how she might have fared as a chef, but certainly her ability to choose piquant words to describe her passion for the aromas, flavours and textures of food, her pungent description of her frustrations, and hungry search to understand and restore her olfactory sense, make a complex but delicious read.
• Charmian Smith is the ODT food writer.
