To Pair or not to Pair, that is the Question…I’m not a big fan of the word pairing. I get it, I know what it means, and so does everyone else. Maybe that’s the point. I’ll call it word laziness, or being non-creative. What is wine pairing? In short, wine and food pairing is the process of matching food dishes with wine to enhance the dining experience. Did we also pair the mashed potatoes and the kale salad to the main course?
I know I’m swimming upstream here and this may be a bit of a stretch, but unless opposites attract, we really aren’t pairing anything. We are matching different taste signatures, or better yet, blending these flavor components which include among others, sweet, acid, salty, bitter, etc. I add salt to my soup, I don’t pair it.
Food word semantics? It is. I minor pet peeve of mine. I’ll never call anyone out for saying it. I will most likely use the term myself, a lot. Because as I have been taught by both life and Wife, you need to communicate to others the way they can understand you. It does no one any good to use words no one understands, in a way no one (else) uses them.
So pass the wine that pairs well with my feelings of internal frustration of the concept of pairing.
