The tongue almost never operates by itself, but works in concert with other sensory systems such as the eyes, ears and nose. Thus it is imperative that for food to 'taste' good, it must also look and smell good and have contrasting textures. Such choices are brought on by, one would argue, traditions of time-honoured classical flavour pairing that may or may not be influenced by chemical reactions such as strawberries and cream, apples and caramel or nuts and chocolate. Such traditions, of course, are culturally influenced. The above Western pairing examples do not have the same love affair with people in the Eastern part of the world where chestnut and bean paste, for instance, are much more influential staples than cream and chocolate in sweet creations.
Tradition implies legacy, which is usually passed on from one generation to the next.
Desserts such as strawberries and cream or apple and caramel are usually referred to as 'simple or home-style' desserts. These are desserts our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers made and served us as children, which also evoke great memories. One of the greatest ability of the human brain is to convert sensory receptors into sensory memory. We usually decide to keep or lose this sensory information and if we choose to keep it, we usually store it as an 'episodic' memory that refers to our life experiences as opposed to 'semantic' memory, which deals with our general knowledge such as people, facts, concepts, etc. Chef s Tales is now available on Amazon.co.uk.