Everyone should occasionally break the law

wildcat2030:

Red wine and steak, soda and burgers, pickles and pastrami sandwiches — these are combinations that just work. Now researchers provide a scientific explanation for why these unions are appealing to the tongue. Astringents like red wine and pickles balance out the grease of steaks and pastrami.

“They cancel each other out, so to speak,” said Paul Breslin, a sensory biologist at Rutgers University and at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, and one of the authors of a study in the journal Current Biology.

Dr. Breslin has long been interested in how food attributes like fattiness, creaminess and astringency affect our mouths. “We want our mouth to be lubricated just right,” he said. “Our saliva does it because of the proteins it produces.”

Greasy food causes overlubrication and leaves an unpleasant slippery feeling on the tongue. On the other hand, drinking very dry wine or strong tea or eating acidic fruit causes the proteins to be precipitated out, creating an equally unpleasant dry sensation.