Have you ever experienced that perfect wine & food match? You've most certainly heard about it, and might even have doubt about the magic of it. Well, I was thinking exactly the same - right, red goes with meat, white with fish, light red on a salmon, tannic red on a game, try white wine with cheese, but red with a camembert, dessert wine on a blue etc. commun statements of wine & food matching (let's agree on the short W&F M). Never really convinced about the caracteres that could make it such a special thing. I also had in mind the fact that i needed great food and great wine, to achieve a perfect W&F M.
All wrong! I understood it that day, a day like any other day, when i had that wonderful surprise. The perfect W&F M. I was in a little cafe, nothing fancy about it, and i ordered a mud cake. As good as a mud cake can be, this chocolate cake from that little place had absolutely nothing special about it. To accompany it, i had a syrah, syrah from NZ not even from the region where i was or from a region known for its syrah - a simple syrah from Nelson, good, well made but nothing fancy about it, not the kind you would remember. However, i had a piece of that cake, and then a sip of that syrah... simply magic.
The length of flavours of the cake was melting with the mid palate of the syrah, and then the length of the syrah or end of mouth, melting with the mid palate of the cake, and one was calling for the other. And i could just not stop going from the cake to the wine to the cake to the wine, until both my plate and my glass were empty.
Flavours and aromas was just perfectly matching, the slight spices in the cake (cinnamon) and the spice of the syrah (pepper) were completing each other, the flavours were completing each other, chocolate on one side and cherries on the other side were meeting and joigning forces, the texture of the cake was helped by the sligt acidity and the soft although present tannic structure of the syrah, and finally the length of both were playing with each other calling for an 'encore'. Nothing was too much, nothing not enough. And the most surprising: the perfect match came from two absolutely commun products. Nothing wonderful about them when tasted on their own, but together it was a the perfect combination - a new ONE coming from two ones.
It is that experience that i want to live again and profoundly want to understand. In cooking, the idea is the same: take 2 products, as not noble as they can be, and combine them. If they flavour wise go together, if they are cooked to match their texture and their length in mouth... you obtain this magic combination. Molecular gastronomy explains you that in cooking. There is a way to explain it in wine and food matching, more cartesian that a simple description as done above. I'm not looking for a table of unbreakable rules, i'm looking for basic principles that will make people live that moment I've lived. The kind of moment that makes you forget time and space, and makes you feel excited and peaceful at the same time. Sounds crazy i know.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The Taste, definition in few words
The taste is the result of stimulations, starting from the visual to the final sensation in mouth:
1) Visual : a dish that looks nice already tastes nicer than the same dish that doesn't look as nice
2) Tactile: and maybe nowadays we forget about this perception a lot. Think about eating something with your fingers or with a fork. It doesn't taste the same because you in fact have that tactile sensation that gives you a complementary information
3) Olfactive: before you have it in mouth, the aromas gives you other information about what it's going to taste like
4) Taste in mouth, and after taste. In mouth, you have the flavours, the texture, the temperature...
The taste is therefore the combination of all these sensations, which once perceived physiologically is translated by the brain which then gives qualities to the taste, depending on your personal and social experiences. It is therefore not only defined by what you perceive when you eat, as each step before the food or wine etc comes in mouth has given an infomation about the flavours and have already been interpreted by the brain.
This interpretation depends on your individual or personal story: some aromas have strong emotions related to them (perfume of your mum, a cake you use to eat every sunday with your grand father, leaves you use to smell in your garden, smell of sweat when you were in the subway, smell of dust and humidity of your underground cellar...). There are also simply aromas you are more familiar with than others: if you were raised in a tropical country, you'll know about the natural taste of mango, palm tree oil, sweet potatoe etc., and maybe you will have a bit more difficulties with red berries, chesnut, camomilla etc.
Now the social interpretation: your social environment, the society you were raised in and live in formats your taste. A cricket is a delicacy in some places of Asia when it appears impossible to serve it in a restaurant of Europe. A thick crust pizza is generally not appreciated in Italy, when a thin crust doesn't appeal much to an American. Cheddar is commonly appreciated by an English when a French likes a stinky runny cheese. However, you will sometimes find a european liking insects, an American eating thin crust pizza and an English loving a reblochon.
We are therefore not equal in front of the taste, and the fantastic thing is that there is no box the taste closes you in.
1) Visual : a dish that looks nice already tastes nicer than the same dish that doesn't look as nice
2) Tactile: and maybe nowadays we forget about this perception a lot. Think about eating something with your fingers or with a fork. It doesn't taste the same because you in fact have that tactile sensation that gives you a complementary information
3) Olfactive: before you have it in mouth, the aromas gives you other information about what it's going to taste like
4) Taste in mouth, and after taste. In mouth, you have the flavours, the texture, the temperature...
The taste is therefore the combination of all these sensations, which once perceived physiologically is translated by the brain which then gives qualities to the taste, depending on your personal and social experiences. It is therefore not only defined by what you perceive when you eat, as each step before the food or wine etc comes in mouth has given an infomation about the flavours and have already been interpreted by the brain.
This interpretation depends on your individual or personal story: some aromas have strong emotions related to them (perfume of your mum, a cake you use to eat every sunday with your grand father, leaves you use to smell in your garden, smell of sweat when you were in the subway, smell of dust and humidity of your underground cellar...). There are also simply aromas you are more familiar with than others: if you were raised in a tropical country, you'll know about the natural taste of mango, palm tree oil, sweet potatoe etc., and maybe you will have a bit more difficulties with red berries, chesnut, camomilla etc.
Now the social interpretation: your social environment, the society you were raised in and live in formats your taste. A cricket is a delicacy in some places of Asia when it appears impossible to serve it in a restaurant of Europe. A thick crust pizza is generally not appreciated in Italy, when a thin crust doesn't appeal much to an American. Cheddar is commonly appreciated by an English when a French likes a stinky runny cheese. However, you will sometimes find a european liking insects, an American eating thin crust pizza and an English loving a reblochon.
We are therefore not equal in front of the taste, and the fantastic thing is that there is no box the taste closes you in.
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