W<\/span>e make a lot of fuss over pairings in this industry. Restaurants offer wine suggestions, cheese shops overflow with accoutrements\u2014hell, this magazine devotes an entire issue to the subject! Why do we fixate on these match-ups? And how do we decide what works and what doesn’t?<\/p>\n Many classic pairings come to us from other cultures, whose word we take because they\u2019ve been doing it that way for centuries out of socioeconomic or environmental necessity\u2014they ate what grew there, what they could afford or access. (Think: Alpine cheese and potatoes.) We live in a very different world now, with an unfathomable array of options fair game for anyone feeling peckish. In this panoply, pairing dogma helps us solve the omnivore\u2019s dilemma\u2014that is, deciding what to eat. But given the subjectivity of how we experience taste, it may only be able to take us so far.<\/p>\n Humans have between 5,000\u201310,000 taste buds on their tongues, and this is where the perception of flavor begins. Those buds pick up on the five basic tastes (bitter, sweet, salty, sour, and umami), while our noses take care of the rest. Up to 90 percent of our experience of flavor comes to us through aromas, and our olfactory perception is directly connected to our brain\u2019s memory centers. As a result, we start forming food memories (and preferences) in the womb.<\/p>\n \u201cFlavor preference is complex and influenced by many factors,\u201d says Boston University lecturer and food scientist Valerie Ryan. \u201cEarly exposure to certain foods, even in utero, and family culinary practices play a large role, as do cultural norms. What\u2019s considered delicious in some parts of the world is disgusting in others.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet we see some of the same pairings replicated in cultures and climates all over\u2014Central America\u2019s guava paste and farmer\u2019s cheese shares a creamy-tangy framework with Taleggio<\/a> and mostarda in Italy, or even the orange creamsicle here in the U.S. Certain flavors find their way to each other, no matter the local weather patterns, and our nutritional needs may be the reason. Our bodies crave acidity to counter something rich and milky; likewise, too much sugar causes us to crave its opposite, resulting in the now-ubiquitous salty chocolate bar.<\/p>\n We orient ourselves toward balance when combining disparate foods\u2014but pairing science isn\u2019t all about stark antipodes. In fact, for a group of chefs and scientists in Belgium, harmonious plating starts with similitude.<\/p>\n Peter Coucquyt, Bernard Lahousse, and Johan Langenbick launched their food tech company Foodpairing<\/a> in 2007 on a simple theory: Complementary ingredients share aromatic compounds. They\u2019d tested this hypothesis by analyzing ingredients using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and it held up to scrutiny. To date, they\u2019ve analyzed over 3,000 ingredients, amassing the world\u2019s largest flavor database. In their book, The Art and Science of Foodpairing<\/em><\/a>, they break ingredients down into 14 aroma types (\u201cspicy,\u201d \u201canimal,\u201d \u201cgreen,\u201d to name a few) and create flavor wheels to visualize how much each type shows up in each ingredient. They then pair ingredients with similar aromatic qualities in grids that outline what they have in common. But even when two ingredients suit one another, there are certain ineffable properties necessary to make things gel.<\/p>\n \u201cAn aromatic pairing is only one part of a successful recipe,\u201d says Coucquyt. According to the book, good pairings walk a thin line between complexity and coherence\u2014too much complexity is overwhelming, while too little is boring. In this way, your own memory becomes a key ingredient in a successful pairing. To explain this, the book uses the example of Mexican mole\u2014the incongruous grouping of chili, chicken, peanuts, and chocolate may register as too complex to someone without a history of eating the dish.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reasons some flavors pair well for one individual and not another go beyond what we can determine objectively in a lab,\u201d says Ryan. Our own pasts can render certain pairing suggestions moot, making it difficult to rely on any hard and fast rules. And sometimes, the rules overshadow what we\u2019re really all here for: the cheese.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a big pairing person.\u201d This is Dave Selden, creator of 33 Books Co<\/a>. He publishes tasting journals for things like cheese, beer, and whiskey, each including a flavor wheel of taste words similar to Foodpairing\u2019s grids. But Selden set out to help consumers find what they like, not to facilitate pairing. \u201cI\u2019m not a person that says, OK, let\u2019s try this dark chocolate with this goat cheese. I will eat them and enjoy them, but kind of separately,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of effort went into making it taste a certain way, and I don\u2019t know that I\u2019m qualified or really interested in changing it all that much.\u201d<\/p>\n Too much pairing talk can also alienate the consumer. \u201cPeople are often intimidated by cheese,\u201d says Erin Carlman Weber, co-owner of Chicago restaurant and cheese counter All Together Now<\/a>. \u201cSometimes the focus on exact proper pairings can add to that fear.\u201d For Carlman Weber, it\u2019s best to focus on the real-world contexts in which people eat. \u201cThere\u2019s a great beverage pairing for every cheese, but if you\u2019re standing around a cheese board at a party, you probably have a<\/em> glass in your hand,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I\u2019m talking to people about what kind of things to have handy, I\u2019m thinking about versatility, and not overshadowing the cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n I heard this unfussy culture reset everywhere I looked\u2014even from those who make their name crafting Instagram-perfect boards. \u201cTaste is definitely the most important factor of a cheese plate,\u201d says Marissa Mullen, author of That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life<\/em><\/a>. She developed a six-step Cheese By Numbers method to help people build coherent cheese plates, but says at the end of the day, you should eat what you like. I asked Mullen what she thought of cheese plate stunt casting, like the ever-present (and messy) pomegranate wedge. \u201cI feel there\u2019s a difference between the \u2018photo-ready\u2019 plate and the plate for serving,\u201d she says. When Mullen includes pomegranate, she\u2019ll set it aside after pictures for guests to tackle at their own risk. <\/p>\n All told, there are more questions than answers when it comes to food pairing, and it may not be possible to untangle this Gordian knot in one article. We seem to have outgrown the overly precious approach to culinary matchmaking, but we can\u2019t abandon the practice altogether. Some foods need each other\u2014take rice and beans, a complete protein only when eaten together. Experimentation is evolutionarily necessary\u2014we may always be asking, \u201cCan I eat x<\/em> with y<\/em>?\u201d Sure, we could survive on Soylent and vitamins, but to do so would abandon the emotional component of flavor. The part of us that remains loyal to the food we grew up with is, simultaneously, the part stubbornly dedicated to the human tradition of new things.<\/p>\n Using The Art and Science of Foodpairing\u2019<\/em>s flavor wheels, we traced the aroma compounds present in a few of our favorite cheeses to like-minded ingredients. Let these harmonious clusters form the backbone of your next cheese plate!<\/p>\n TRY: Laura Chenel Original French Goat Cheese<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Sharing many green vegetal aromas, these bright items are grounded by the tea\u2019s bitterness and the ch\u00e8vre\u2019s animal and coconut scents.<\/p>\n TRY: Caveman Blue<\/a>, Quinta do Infantado Ruby Port<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n These ingredients share an ester called ethyl hexanoate, which has a tropical fruit flavor and can register as faintly cheesy in low concentrations.<\/p>\n TRY: Haystack Mountain Cashmere<\/a>, Tulip Tree Creamery Trillium<\/a>, Fruition Colombia Tumaco Dark 85% chocolate<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n How can you bring this bouquet of malty, woody, and floral notes together? Shake up a yuzu Aviation to sip alongside a dessert plate of Brie and chocolate.<\/p>\n TRY: Idiazabal DOP<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The fruity, cheesy, and nutty aromas these ingredients share set off complementary waves of umami, each one different from the last.<\/p>\n TRY: Murray’s Stockinghall Cheddar<\/a>, Hapi Mixed Crackers<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The distinct elements of this ready-to-go snack plate are unified by a common devotion to tingly spice and grassy green flavors.<\/p>\n If you make a lot of cheese plates, the pairings can get kind of stale\u2014no offense to fig jam and honey. Give your board are fresh with something from your own kitchen.<\/p>\n\u2014The Scientist’s Cheese Plate\u2014<\/h1>\n
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<\/p>\n1. CH\u00c8VRE, CUCUMBER, BLACK TEA, BLACKBERRY<\/h3>\n
2. BLUE CHEESE, PORT, PINEAPPLE<\/h3>\n
3. BRIE, PRUNES, YUZU, MARASCHINO LIQUEUR, DARK CHOCOLATE<\/h3>\n
4. IDIAZABAL, BACON, SOYSAUCE, MATCHA<\/h3>\n
5. FARMHOUSE CHEDDAR, SEAWEED PARTY MIX, GINGER BEER<\/h3>\n
\nDIY SNACKS<\/span><\/h1>\n