Harmony of virgin olive oil and food pairing: A methodological proposal

The growing interest in sensory analysis of olive oil, as required by European Union (EU) law 2568191 ( EEC Reg.) and following revisions (EC Reg. 796102), calls for the need to define an analytical method to properly describe the sensory attributes for harmonic pairing of virgin olive oil to a specific food. To accomplish that, in February 2006, the sensory analysis panel of the Department of Food Sciences of the University of Bologna (Italy) carried out systematic sensory, analyses of extra virgin olive oils and foods to evaluate the harmony of the pairing. Specific scorecards for olive oil, food and pairing harmony were defined; the resulting harmony was visualized graphically. Some examples of virgin olive oil and food pairing were also presented.