I often compare food pairing with other arts like music and paint, even with motor sports.
All these fields are "rule-free" with rules. I don't know how to explain, let me give some examples:
- in music, if you play randomly all the keys of a piano (black & white), the sound will be terrible. Yet, there are some musicians who don't follow the rules and seem to play randomly but the sound they make is terrific.
- in motor sports: rules are even more obvious. You want a big engine, you have to have a big exhaust. Then, depending on the ground you're racing, you'll need these or those tires, these or those suspensions...
Adding my own experience to all that, I came to the conclusion that you can do whatever you want if you know why you do it, hence my signature - Picasso definitely knew how to draw "normally".
And being in China this is a hot topic I often discuss with people. Chinese people tend to say that one has to adapt its food to its local taste (that would be the reason why Chinese restaurants abroad are not authentic, like Quebert's humorous remark at reply 8
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=63320.0;topicseen). I say one doesn't have to, except for some extreme flavors or ingredients maybe (and you're not going to sell ham and bacon in a muslim country).
But let's go back to the initial subject: as I said above, you can do whatever you want if you know why you do it. The problem is that a lot of people don't. And when Chinese pizza makers make a pizza like this: dough, mayonnaise, mozzarella, fruits (apple, strawberry, dragon fruit...), and then mayonnaise again after baking
No, I'm sorry but I say no.
It's a triple problem: 1) fruit + mayonnaise; 2) mayonnaise + baking; 3) fruit (only) + mozzarella.
1) : in local restaurants, it's common to see a "fruit salad" paired with mayonnaise. I think they misunderstood mayonnaise with yogurt at the first place, when they weren't too many dairy products in the 90's.
2) : you don't bake a mayonnaise. It becomes oil, definitely awful.
3) : you can pair some blackberries or fig or raspberries with some blue cheese/hard cheese... But mozzarella?? And only mozzarella, no meat, no veggies... So you basically add sweet/sugar to a slightly salted cheese. The balance isn't right, it lacks something. Use mascarpone or ricotta, but not mozzarella.
And like this, Chinese newly converted to western cuisine make many mistakes, instead of cantaloupe they would add let's say... banana with prosciutto (just an example, I never actually saw this mistake ^^). I also realized that I made the same mistakes when I was making Chinese food before going there (I was abusively using any kind of soy sauces lol).
So you really have to know the background of the ingredients. Why they're often together.
Another example (before I go to bed): during a pizza competition, the guy made some shrimp-mushroom pizza. It didn't taste bad, but there was something wrong. Then here is how I analyzed it: shrimp is seafood. I think seafood, I think summer, fishing, beach... Although mushroom is a land product, so I think forest, mountain, rain, wild boar (pork meat more than seafood)... 2 different, if not opposite, concepts.
Of course, you can blend them: land and sea. That can be a great concept. But the participant who made the pizza didn't know why he made this pairing, so a link was missing. Even though the pizza wasn't bad, it wasn't good (enough).
All this is only my personal analyze, I know I don't know enough, and I know taste buds are different between the US and Europe (North American like adding sweet things on greasy and salty products
("to cover bacon with brown sugar"
).
I just wanted to share it
