"food pairings" news and stories

What's the best nosh with beer? Here, from a couple of New York's finest beer experts, are five unique pairings. Following the gastropub tips are DIY dishes, with recipes, to bring the pairings home.

1. Dry stout and oysters. White wine and oysters seem the most genius flavor combination, especially when they're both briny, creamy and fresh. However, way back in the day, oysters weren't a novelty, but a cheap mainstay, its common bedfellow was a dry stout. At Jimmy's No. 43, a beer-focused gastropub in Manhattan, Long Island oysters are paired every Wednesday with stouts like the Irish Porterhouse Oyster.

DIY: Raw Oysters + Gritty McDuff's Black Fly Stout

2. Sweet pickles and Belgian Strong Ale. Pickle plates are increasingly popular among restaurants with a penchant for the local and the preserved. At one such venue, Beer Table in Brooklyn, New York, owner Justin Philips pairs sweet-potato pickles with a Belgian-style strong ale. "The sweet potatoes are soaked in orange juice and brown sugar which is great with the round, tropical flavors of The Bruery's Mischief."

DIY: Bread-and-Butter Pickles + Brooklyn Local 1.

Some foods are meant to go together. In fact, many of them pair so well that they have become the most classic comfort foods. In an effort to bypass the well-known, I first set out to collect the 8 worst food pairings, but was so disgusted by the idea of pickled herring and cheesecake that I was forced to stop. I realized that it is for good reason that some foods get paired: they taste great together and make such good combinations that it is hard to think of one without the other. These are definitely a few of the best:

1. Peanut butter and jelly
2. Macaroni and cheese
3. Fish and chips (or burgers and fries)
4. Bacon and eggs
5. Milk and cookies
6. Pancakes and syrup
7. Gin and tonic
8. Spaghetti and meatballs

Salt and pepper is, arguably, the ultimate combination, though they are seasonings and not exactly "food". Here are some of the runners up from the list above: Butter and toast, cupcakes and sprinkles, tomato soup and grilled cheese, cheese and crackers and Ben and Jerry’s.

I know there are lots of others. What are we missing?