Pairing a beer with a soundtrack: Is it guided by geographical identity?

In French gastronomy, food and beverage pairing is a traditional practice set down by pairing principles. Among these, some studies highlighted the principle of geographical identity: pairing two products related to the same area. While this concept has been explored for food-food and food-beverage paring, there is less investigation across different senses e.g. auditory and flavory; specifically when flavory stimuli belong to the same food category. Yet it is well known that the auditory environment interacts with food behavior. We can wonder whether the pairing principles identified for food and beverage are relevant for a soundtrack and a beverage and more precisely whether the shared geographical identity of a beverage and a soundtrack drive their association. The aim of the present study is to explore multisensory interaction through the investigation of geographical identity association between a complex beverage - a beer - and a complex soundtrack (i.e. stimuli with a perceived complexity). The results showed that familiarity and hedonic evaluation of pairs as well as of soundtracks were strongly correlated to harmony evaluation of pairs while familiarity and hedonic evaluation of beers were correlated together. In addition, the results seem to highlight that soundtracks dominate the evaluation of pairs. The present study attempts to demonstrate that pairing multisensory stimuli is complex and the related principles refer to some of the already highlighted pairing principles for food-food pairing: geographical identity but also perceptual principles.

Automated summary

In French gastronomy, the traditional practice of food and beverage pairing emphasizes the principle of geographical identity, but there is limited research on pairing across different senses; familiarity and hedonic evaluation significantly affect harmony evaluation of pairs, and it appears that soundtracks play a dominant role in the evaluation.