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Debate Simmers Over Science of Food Pairing
carmendrahl writes "Why do foods taste good together? Scientists aren't anywhere near figuring it out, but that hasn't stopped one popular idea from spawning a company dedicated to discovering avant-garde new pairings. The idea, called flavor-pairing theory, says that if foods share a key odor molecule, they'll pair well. But some scientists say the idea can't explain all cuisines, and another contends his work with tomato flavor (abstract) shows that flavor pairing is 'a gimmick by a chef who is practicing biology without a license.'"
-- Mitch Hedberg
You can't call that biology. That and the premise itself is flawed. "Why do foods taste good together?". More like, "Why do we think foods taste good together?".
That still sounds great to me. Or putting salad not next to, but ON the spaghetti. YUM! The best meals I can only eat in solitude, society just doesn't understand.
I'm a plate turner...not quite as bad as when I was young..but I just don't like my foods mixed.
When I'd eat..I'd have multiple things on my plate..but I'd eat all of one thing..finish is, then often, literally turn the plate to eat the next thing in succession (I don't recall if always clockwise or counter clockwise or if there was a pattern...likely just the next best thing)...eat that..then turn.....etc.
As a kid, my favorite thing, was those plates that had compartments..so that one food didn't touch the other food.
Hence, in my example above..of late nights on weekends in college...going to Denny's I'd order spaghetti and meatballs or something...and a side of fries, things that don't generally pair...but was ok for me, since I'd eat all the spaghetti...then, turn my attention to the fries.
I find I don't usually drink and eat at the same time, even to this day. I don't wash my food down.
For years, i've been trying to make a concerted effort to change this at least for wine...so I can do like most say, and enjoy a good wine paired with a meal. I used to get pissed when eating with others...I'd drink a bit of wine that came before the meal...but during the meal, I'd stop drinking...and when the meal was over, since the others hadn't stopped drinking and eating together...the wine often was gone....
While I'm not as bad as I used to be...if I don't think about it...I still do the one food at a time thing to a great extent.
I love to cook, but one of my downfalls is that I've not grown up learning what foods do go well together when planning menus for others. To me, I'm just usually concerned about each individual dish's flavor...but not how they integrate into a meal...when enjoyed by others that eat a bit of this and a bit of that all through the meal.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Its not a food attribute to taste good or bad, is a cultural/personal thing, what you associated to that kind of tastes since early childhood (or even before). Mixing 2 could raise odds of reviving what you felt in the past while tasting one of the components.
Weed + any food = yum.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Pinch your nose closed and take a bite of your favorite succulent cuisine. You'll quickly realize that taste is not what you think it is, and that what your brain perceives as "taste" depends much more on olfactory stimulation than on your tastebuds.
I learned that first watching Mr. Wizard's World way back in the 80s. :)
Engineer: antithesis of a 'foodie'
PBJ for lunch every day!
You know, there is a place in the world for "culinary engineering." I'm not talking about the manly art of flipping burgers on the grill. (Although there are actually better and worse techniques for that, too... empirically-derived....) If you don't make use of at least two kitchen scales (with different levels of precision), a superfast probe thermometer with thermocouple, an infrared thermometer, and a pH meter in your kitchen on a regular basis, you're not living up to the engineer's creed.
(I know what some of you are thinking -- what the heck is a pH meter doing in a kitchen? Very useful for testing the place of sourdough in its life cycle, whether your dill pickles and sauerkraut are properly fermented, even getting the perfect lemonade strength...)
My kitchen is also outfitted with a bunch of lab glassware -- Erlenmeyer flasks make great containers for oils and things you don't want to spill (laboratory glassware tends to have good lips to prevent a lot of dripping). A 2-liter or 5-liter beaker is great for measuring the rise of bread dough and its "doubling." All my spices are conveniently alphabetized in large test tubes in a test tube rack.
Engineering can be applied to most problems. Cooking is just applied chemistry, and therefore it amounts to chemical engineering on a very small scale. For example, using precision instruments can actually give your cooking an edge (particularly in baking), as long as you know what you're doing.
If you want to get even more fancy, keep a "lab notebook" of your "experiments." Note successful techniques to replicate your "experiments" for a dinner party. Record the weather and kitchen conditions when you're doing anything involving yeast or other microorganisms (like making your own cultured buttermilk). etc.
One can go overboard. I have yet to set up a distillation column to make my own extracts and essential oils, but that will probably happen at some point....
By the way, perhaps the problem is terminology. I spend a lot of time cooking, and I enjoy a fancy dinner at many "fancy" restaurants. But I'd never associate myself with the term "foodie," which I think of almost as an insult. Perhaps that's because most of the people whom I know and consider themselves "foodies" are pretentious idiots who care more about what the "hot" restaurants are, what the "hip" ways to make certain food are, etc., rather than whether it actually tastes good to anyone.
You're right -- "foodies" are not engineers, any more than an haute couture dress designer is an engineer. But that doesn't mean we can't use engineering to create newer better fabrics, better dyes, more efficient or durable designs for clothing, etc. Whether the fashion snobs will accept it (as the foodies judge the new restaurant or sniff their wine) is beside the point. Unlike in clothing fashion, most people are happy to eat good food cooked at home, without the approval of some elite.
Former chef here. You have to be sonewhat licensed for food handling in several countries - certainly here in Oz. Also cookery is more chemustry than biology, unless you don't clean down after service.
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley