BANANA TREE: The banana “food tree” from foodpairing.com, showing flavors that go well with the ubiquitous tropical fruit© FOODPAIRING.COM, 2012
Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s dish made from dark chocolate pasta bathed in a cream sauce that’s been spiked with parmesan cheese is one that may not whet everyone’s appetite. Chefs have long experimented with unusual food pairings, but now kitchen wizards have a new tool that can help them concoct even more daring culinary combinations. It’s based on research that purports to determine the compatibility of smells, which come from the volatile, or easily evaporating, compounds in food.
While the taste of food—the saltiness, sweetness, or sourness of it—contributes to the dining experience, it’s the odors that actually deliver most of the flavor, explains Marcia Levin Pelchat, a sensory psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. “During normal eating movements, the tongue and ...
