Imagine eating a chocolate cake with dark, chocolate frosting smothering its surface. While eating this savory dessert, a mellifluous melody from a piano hums in the background. What flavors fill the mouth from these two combinations? Is it the sweetness of the cake itself or the bitterness of the frosting? It may be hard to believe that whatever tastes one receives, especially from a chocolate cake, that its flavors can actually be heightened and alter perceptions of what one consumes. Along with more sensitive senses to tasting and attitudes towards different dishes, music can also create a memorable experience, which leads to certain pitches that trigger certain tastes. This concept of music and its effects on the taste of food is known as “sonic seasoning”. If the piano’s melody gave off certain savory tastes and specific memories, one can exhibit how the imaginary chocolate cake fueled certain memories and moods through this idea of sonic seasoning.
Most people find it surprising that music changes the perceptions and taste of the food they eat. Some believe that whatever their taste buds sense is the only definite true taste and that no other force can change it. However, a study conducted by the Crossmodal Laboratory at Oxford University caused quite a shock to the non-believers of sonic seasoning. In this experiment, volunteers were given cinder toffee, which has a bittersweet sapor, to consume while high and low pitches were being played. The results showed that the light notes caused participants to sense the pleasantness of the candy whereas the low frequencies emphasized the bitterness of the toffee (Fleming, How sound affects the taste of our food, 2014). Not only can sounds alter various flavors of a dish, but food can also be assimilated with certain sounds overtime. Typically, low sounds of a brass instrument are associated to acrid tastes like coffee, and high notes of perhaps a piano can be related to a sweet dessert (Music While Eating Changes How Food Tastes). The experiment and the clip above, reveal the role music has on the food people consume. Music can enhance the quality of the food and the person’s discovery of consuming it. Therefore, these moments can trigger particular, memorable responses to the food. Whatever connotations food may elicit in the presence of music, these two combinations heighten the human experience. 
Music not only can trigger memories with food, but with emotions and memory. We all have a type of music or even specific bands/songs that we hear that reminds us of when we were younger, whether it was sad moments or the happiest. It is believed that the human brain embeds our memories within the music because of the patterns within the score that is easier to store than the complicated images that our memories are comprised of. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist discussed on how music can even help Alzheimer's patients. Even the patients who were rendered mute were able to start humming and even singing along with the music from their childhood. Through studies like this, music therapy has expanded to help patients with dementia and other memory affecting diseases. Music and Memory is a new organization that is making personalized music for dementia patients to help them remember their pasts and relieve their lives anew. While it can’t completely reconstruct the neural pathways that memory is created through, it can help to start connections between these pathways to access long forgotten long term memory. 
There’s a term for adding music to a delicious dish of food: Musical Pairing. This term is coined by Barbara Werner who briefly explains and defines this term here. In essence it means eating food to the right kind of music in order to enhance the eating experience, and that music is subject to change based on the dish being consumed. A study was conducted a few years ago on the effect of background noise and how it alters the taste of the food. According to the article, “In noisier settings, foods were rated less salty or sweet than they were in the absence of background noise, but were rated to be more crunchy.” this is a fascinating find, because that means that music must also have some affect on taste. Jazz, blues or soft swing type music is often played at high class, fancy restaurants (as well as classical, but this essay is focused primarily on contemporary music), and this additional aural sense adds to the atmosphere of the establishment and elevates the experience. When people eat at a large barbeque gathering with a “country” band playing, it adds to the experience by having all five senses active in eating, more than likely creating a more stable memory than eating some succulent sauerkraut without structured sound in the background. According to this article published in 1991 “[listening to soothing music] might not only slacken your pace but also make you less likely to go for second helpings. Lively, fast-tempoed music, by contrast, may make you eat more. Researchers found that out by counting the bites of food people took at meals while listening to various songs.” Music is a powerful tool that affects us in many ways, from the evocation of emotions, to the formulations of memories, and even the very perception of how different food tastes based on what sounds are in the air at the time of consumption.
Citations:
Fleming, Amy. How sound affects the taste of our food. The Guardian. 11 Mar. 2014. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/mar/11/sound-affects-taste-food-sweet-bitter
News, GeoBeats. Music While Eating Changes How Food Tastes. YouTube. 17 Jun. 2014. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/s6TtbBMSRUI
Credits:
Nick De Los Santos: 3rd paragraph
Erika Query: 2nd paragraph, pictures, editing
Holly Winter: Introduction, 1st paragraph, pictures, editing, citations
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