WE ALL know red wine goes with beef, white wine goes with fish and lager is the ideal foil for a spicy curry. But can science explain why some drinks are a perfect match for certain foods?
One hypothesis for explaining flavour matches is that foods go together well if they share many aroma compounds (see “How to use ‘flavour bridging’ to cook a bizarre but tasty holiday meal“). But this theory has its critics, and in any case, different rules are likely to apply to food and drink pairings, when the two partners aren’t usually in the…