Smithsonian reports that researchers from Bern University played music for wheels of Emmenthal cheese for six months while it matured. Cheese technologists examined the results afterwards, concluding that cheese exposed to hip-hop music is by far the funkiest. After that, culinary experts sampled the cheese in two rounds of a blind taste test, and again the hip-hop cheese was a winner.
The “classical” cheese mellowed to the sounds of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The “rock” cheese listened to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” An ambient cheese listened to Yello’s “Monolith,” the hip-hop cheese was exposed to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got)” and the techno fromage raved to Vril’s “UV.” A control cheese aged in silence, while three other wheels were exposed to simple high, medium and low frequency tones.
This is only a start, of course — more experimentation will be needed. Perhaps someday cheese will be marketed based on the music to which it matures? Just imagine Depeche Mode cheese!
Scientists Played Music to Cheese as It Aged. Hip-Hop Produced the Funkiest Flavor
