Grab your mildest crackers and the AUX chord: scientists have found that playing hip-hop music during the cheese making process yields the “funkiest” flavour.
In a study named Cheese in Surround Sound, conducted by a team of researchers from the Bern University of Arts and Swiss cheesemaker Beat Wampfler, found that hip-hop made it ‘funky’, while the riffs of Led Zeppelin and compositions of Mozart produced a milder zest.
The results were found by placing nine 22-pound wheels of Emmental cheese in wooden crates for six months in Wampfler’s cheese cellar.
Over the half year period, the wheels were hooked up to a mini-transducer which sent an endless loop of the same song directly into the cheese.
Four control cheese was relegated to age in either silence or simple high, medium and low-frequency tones, while the others were separated by genre for the most conclusive results.
The ‘rock cheese’ was played Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for the ‘rock cheese’, Vril’s ‘UV’ soundtracked the ageing of “techno cheese”, “‘classical cheese” was treated to the sounds of Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’, while A Tribe Called Quest‘s ‘Jazz (We’ve Got)’ was played to “hip-hop cheese”, yielding that ultimately funky flavour.
Food technologists form the ZHAW Food Perception Research Group then gave the respective cheeses an examination, concluding that the ‘hip-hop cheese’ had a stronger aroma and flavour than other wheels, but that cheese exposed to music had a milder flavour compared to the non-musical cheese,
It’s worth noting that the ZHAW researchers who worked on the project noted that, while there were differences between the cheeses, they were “minimal”.
The results were then underpinned by a jury of culinary experts who agreed on the research group’s findings, with the high-octane hip-hop cheese getting props again for its noticeable funk.
Photo via the Bern University of the Arts HKB
