Tasting ancient Greek modes: Does culinary arts education make a difference?

Abstract

The connection between taste perception, emotion and musical elements such as tempo, rhythm and pitch studies run deep. However, the influence of musical structure on taste perception is yet a challenge for the food market and the literature. Present study is the first in this field that attempts cross-modal associations between ancient Greek modes (major structural part of many pieces of music), tastes, and the emotions evoked by these stimuli, as well as how gastronomy and culinary arts education influences these associations. Five hundred-ten students listened to the sequence of the seven diatonic modes, Aeolian, Ionian, Locrian, Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian, and Phrygian, and associated them with basic tastes. Emotions evoked by tastes and emotions evoked by modes were collected from the literature, and associations between modes, tastes and emotions were analyzed. The emotional impacts of tastes were mostly in agreement with the emotional impacts of the associated modes. Overall data linked Aeolian, Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian modes mainly with sweet tastes, Dorian with salty, and Locrian and Phriygian with bitter tastes. However, taste association distribution differed significantly as a function of musical mode and culinary background (p < 0.005). The connotations of tastes to modes were mostly influenced by culinary education, especially for sweet and bitter tastes. Both culinary and non-culinary groups had an agreement on the distribution of tastes within Dorian and Phrygian modes only. Taste associations between modes were significantly different; however non-culinary group showed more variability in their selection of tastes evoked by the modes (p < 0.005).