Why Do Flavours Go Together?

[Doofus]

Chicken and tarragon.
Fish and dill
Duck and orange
Beef and horseradish
Lamb and mint
etc

Do certain flavours actually, scientifically, go well together, or are we just conditioned to believe that they do?

[shirt]

Try this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Segn...

Half science half anecdotal, but it’s decent.

[Wills2]

The only one on that list is Lamb and mint for me, you can keep the rest awful combinations.

[Doofus]

shirt said:

Try this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Segn...

Half science half anecdotal, but it s decent.

Thank you, I'll take a look although my question is actually 'why'? not 'what'?

[shirt]

She goes into that. Some of the science behind it. It’s less of a recipe book, more a discussion that could be started off by your opening post.

I don’t have it to hand so can’t really contribute more.

[Doofus]

Cool, thanks.

[oddman]

Before clicking on the link to the book I was going to say something about the colour wheel and contrasting and complimentary colours.

Seems they got there first. There's also a metaphor with music in the sense of tastes being harmonious.

A few fundamentals about the olfactory/gustatory system - most of flavour is picked up by our olfactory system. Taste only has a few primary receptors, sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami.

Id say most pleasing taste combination are about complement or contrast.

Herbs and spices aren't 'tasted' per se they compliment the primary flavours via the olfactory system.

I can think of a few 'rules'

• things that grow together go together. Think tomatoes and basil, fish and samphire, grouse and brambles. I don't whether this is a taste mechanism or historical association which makes these flavours work - they just do
• sweet and sour - associated with chinese cooking but almost all sauces rely on an acid and sweet component even of it as subtle as caramelised meat or veg or carrots in a stock
• contrasts fruit and meat pork and apple duck and orange. Fatty meats work really well with something acidic to cut through
• if a sauce or stew has all the right ingredients and still a bit meh then it probably needs salt. Salt is almost magic and seasoning is one of the big differences between professional and amateur cooks
• everything tastes better with more butter
• umami is another 'secret sauce' - making and concentrating your own stock so you get umami and shine from the collagen therein. For the same reason duck or goose fat is great for roast potatoes (as well as high smoke point)
• chilli can be used so many ways but can be an amazing harmonic top note over something like a crab and mango salad. Ginger, Mint, Horseradish, Wasabi and Coriander - for those who can tolerate, it also have this almost soprano role in the harmony of flavours.

And then, of course there are wine pairings which work along similar principles of complement and contrast

Not that I think about it much

[T697JVS]

shirt said:

Try this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Segn...

Half science half anecdotal, but it s decent.

Was going to suggest the same; an excellent book.

[Digger]

Here is the Amazon UK link . . .

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Se...

[Doofus]

Digger said:

Here is the Amazon UK link . . .

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Se...

I've already bought it.

[NormalWisdom]

Wills2 said:

The only one on that list is Lamb and mint for me, you can keep the rest awful combinations.

Mrs Wisdom is half French - Her family think the Mint/Lamb combo is the food of the devil !!

I love it

[Doofus]

oddman said:

Before clicking on the link to the book I was going to say something about the colour wheel and contrasting and complimentary colours.

Seems they got there first. There's also a metaphor with music in the sense of tastes being harmonious.

A few fundamentals about the olfactory/gustatory system - most of flavour is picked up by our olfactory system. Taste only has a few primary receptors, sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami.

Id say most pleasing taste combination are about complement or contrast.

Herbs and spices aren't 'tasted' per se they compliment the primary flavours via the olfactory system.

I can think of a few 'rules'

• things that grow together go together. Think tomatoes and basil, fish and samphire, grouse and brambles. I don't whether this is a taste mechanism or historical association which makes these flavours work - they just do
• sweet and sour - associated with chinese cooking but almost all sauces rely on an acid and sweet component even of it as subtle as caramelised meat or veg or carrots in a stock
• contrasts fruit and meat pork and apple duck and orange. Fatty meats work really well with something acidic to cut through
• if a sauce or stew has all the right ingredients and still a bit meh then it probably needs salt. Salt is almost magic and seasoning is one of the big differences between professional and amateur cooks
• everything tastes better with more butter
• umami is another 'secret sauce' - making and concentrating your own stock so you get umami and shine from the collagen therein. For the same reason duck or goose fat is great for roast potatoes (as well as high smoke point)
• chilli can be used so many ways but can be an amazing harmonic top note over something like a crab and mango salad. Ginger, Mint, Horseradish, Wasabi and Coriander - for those who can tolerate, it also have this almost soprano role in the harmony of flavours.

And then, of course there are wine pairings which work along similar principles of complement and contrast

Not that I think about it much

Interesting, thank you.

[sean ie3]

Had the yearly ploughman's just the other day, M&S ploughman's pickle went very well with the M&S Cheddar.

[clippy1]

Doofus said:

Chicken and tarragon.
Fish and dill
Duck and orange
Beef and horseradish
Lamb and mint
etc

Do certain flavours actually, scientifically, go well together, or are we just conditioned to believe that they do?

It’s very similar to painting, just with flavour instead of colour.

A chef is basically working with a palette. Some flavours are like primary colours (fat, acid, salt, sweetness, umami), and others are like tones and shades built on top. Just as a painter might use blue to calm a composition or red to add intensity, a chef uses something like lemon to lift a dish or mint to sharpen it.

Pairings like chicken and tarragon or lamb and mint are a bit like complementary colours on a colour wheel. They naturally enhance each other when placed together. But the real skill is knowing when to contrast, when to blend, and when to leave space, just like negative space in a painting.

So yes, flavour is basically edible composition. A good chef is doing colour theory, but for taste.

[LunarOne]

NormalWisdom said:

Wills2 said:

The only one on that list is Lamb and mint for me, you can keep the rest awful combinations.

Mrs Wisdom is half French - Her family think the Mint/Lamb combo is the food of the devil !!

I love it

I'm British and I can't bear lamb with mint. Lamb is my favourite meat but mint destroys all the flavour! Now GARLIC on the other hand...

[Doofus]

clippy1 said:

It s very similar to painting, just with flavour instead of colour.

A chef is basically working with a palette. Some flavours are like primary colours (fat, acid, salt, sweetness, umami), and others are like tones and shades built on top. Just as a painter might use blue to calm a composition or red to add intensity, a chef uses something like lemon to lift a dish or mint to sharpen it.

Pairings like chicken and tarragon or lamb and mint are a bit like complementary colours on a colour wheel. They naturally enhance each other when placed together. But the real skill is knowing when to contrast, when to blend, and when to leave space, just like negative space in a painting.

So yes, flavour is basically edible composition. A good chef is doing colour theory, but for taste.

That's what ChatGpt saud when I asked it.

[The Gauge]

I wonder how these pairings were ever discovered? Who took beef and then thought to dig up some horseradish root to make a sauce, to see if the flavours worked? Maybe they d shove an apple into a pigs mouth to keep it open when spit roasting to allow heat inside, and discovered the cooked apple tasted good with pork?

I think a lot of it is personal taste and lifelong influence.

We are conditioned to have mint with lamb, cranberry with poultry etc, but I have mint and cranberry with every roast dinner whatever the meat. So I ll have cranberry with lamb as it goes with the veg just as much as any meat.

Edited by The Gauge on Thursday 11th June 06:42

[oddman]

The Gauge said:

I wonder how these pairings were ever discovered? Who took beef and then thought to dig up some horseradish root to make a sauce, to see if the flavours worked? Maybe they d shove an apple into a pigs mouth to keep it open when spit roasting to allow heat inside, and discovered the cooked apple tasted good with pork?

I think a lot of it is personal taste and lifelong influence.

We are conditioned to have mint with lamb, cranberry with poultry etc, but I have mint and cranberry with every roast dinner whatever the meat. So I ll have cranberry with lamb as it goes with the veg just as much as any meat.

Edited by The Gauge on Thursday 11th June 06:42

In the past we didn't have the types of fruit and veg available today. For instance on this island we had crab apples not the apples we know today. We would have had to get by using knowledge passed down by our forebears. Wild plants have a defence against being eaten which is why they odd and bitter flavours. These chemicals can form the basis of medicines such as aspirin and quinine but are also the phytochemicals that are increasingly thought to be one of the things that makes whole natural foods more healthy than processed foods.

My suspicion is they made do with what they had. Roots were inevitably more bitter and unpalatable than they are today. Outside of slaughter periods, meat would have been heavily salted to preserve it and the combination with another preserved substance - pickled or fermented fruit and veg was more of a necessity than an aesthetic choice. So whilst cheese and pickle makes sense on one level - combining something fatty with something acidic. Before refridgeration, it was a way of getting in calories during the hungry gap.

[phil4]

The oddest I've come across is peanut butter and coconut. Works superbly well.

Have it with a peanut butter based chicken satay, and coconut rice (rice cooked in coconut milk, and desiccated coconut mixed in).

[ATG]

Doofus said:

Chicken and tarragon.
Fish and dill
Duck and orange
Beef and horseradish
Lamb and mint
etc

Do certain flavours actually, scientifically, go well together, or are we just conditioned to believe that they do?

This is not quite the same, but quite closely related, and "scientific" as opposed to cultural, because it's not unique to humans.

If I gave you a spoon and a pot of fat and another pot of sugar, you wouldn't say "yum" and tuck in. You might have a bit of either, bit generally you'd find either by itself "too much"; too sweet, too fatty.

And rats behave the same way.

But if you mix the fat and sugar 50:50, most humans will attack it. It's pretty much exactly the same as ice-cream or cheese cake.

And rats do the same.

And they also laze around listlessly afterwards, occasionally returning to engorge themselves further, and eventually get fat and die of heart disease.