Turns out, yes. Yes it can.
Let’s face it, chocolate-eating is an important issue. So we were obviously intrigued when Cadbury Dairy Milk told us they’d commissioned a report investigating how closely linked the flavour of our favourite chocolate and certain sound dimensions are. Yes, we’re being deadly serious.
Duncan Smith, managing director of Mindlab – one of the country’s top neuroscience agencies, said: “Multiple studies show that music and taste are intrinsically linked. Just as you’d pair wine with certain food, you should pair certain sounds with specific food to enhance the taste and experience.”
So – before you go pairing a Crunchie Cadbury with Oreo with completely the wrong music (what a catastrophe that would be), these are the top 5 flavour and sound dimension pairings:
Low pitch complements nutty flavours
High pitched music complements crunchy texture
Steady rhythm complements smooth texture
Mellow sounds complements soft spongy textures
Up-tempo sounds complements surprising textures that pop and crackle
We were invited along to a performance of Cadbury Dairy Milk’s first ever music album “The Sound of Flavourites”. Thanks to the London Contemporary Orchestra (who are ah-ma-zing btw) we heard nine tracks designed just for enhancing our chocolate-munching experience. And munched we did.
Here were our favourites:
1. Bright Clouds Over Rocky Roads – a less rhythmical, more mellow sound – perfectly paired withCadbury Dairy Milk Rocky Mallow Road
2. Smooth Sonata – a smooth sound with very few rhythmical variations and relatively moderately pitched – perfectly paired with Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel
3. Crunch Time – a high-pitched, bright tone, with a lot of rhythmical modulations – perfectly paired with Cadbury Dairy Milk Crunchie Bits
There’s no denying the whole night was, um, a bit weird. Sat on tables, surrounded by bright purple lighting – in a church – we had to place a square of plain Dairy Milk on our tongues and really savour the taste – you know, as practice for the night ahead.
But, of course, like with any food-tasting, all you really want to do is just gobble the whole bar up.
We had conflicting emotions about how we’d feel throughout the concert – we had nine different Cadbury Dairy Milk varieties to sample. Would we get cocky and think we should eat more than the recommended one square per 3 minute song? Would we then feel horribly sick? The answer was yes.
But the music was beautiful, and you know what? The science behind the night really did work. Honestly. Okay, with some of the chocolate bars more than others. Take Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut – there was no nut in the squares we broke off so we didn’t really find the low pitched sounds enhanced the nutty flavours. But Cadbury Dairy Milk Rocky Mallow Road, was just so yummy – you really noticed the little marshmallow bits, so it seems the more mellow sounds did work. It was a great three minutes.
But the best one? The Smooth Sonata paired with Dairy Milk Caramel. You had to really let the chocolate melt in the mouth, the caramel really slowly seeping out, and it did taste amazing. Yes – better than normal even.
Oh, alright, maybe it was just the wine…
