Recipes for North American and Western European cuisines tend to use ingredients that share flavor compounds, while recipes from East Asia and Southern Europe tend to avoid ingredients that share flavor compounds, study finds

Allison Oesterle

LOS ANGELES , December 19, 2011 (Industry Intelligence) – According to a study conducted by researchers at India University, while recipes for North American and Western European cuisines tend to use ingredients that share flavor compounds, recipes from East Asia and Southern Europea tend to avoid ingredients that share flavor compounds, Food Product Design reported on Dec. 16.

For the study, the researchers analyzed key ingredients featured in 56,498 online recipes.

“What we showed was that the recipes in North American cuisine tend to share more flavor compounds than expected," the researchers said. "The most authentic ingredient pairs and triplets in North American cuisine also tend to share multiple flavor compounds, while compound-sharing links are rare among the most authentic combinations in East Asian cuisine.”

They did note, however, that the number of recipes used in the study was miniscule when compared with the total number of existing or potential recipes.

“We identified frequently used ingredients that contributed positively to the food pairing effect in North American cuisine, like milk, butter, cocoa, vanilla, cream and eggs," the researchers said. "These played a disproportionate role, as 13 key ingredients that contributed to a shared compound effect were found in 74.4 percent of North American recipes."

They also found that in cuisine from East Asia, beef, ginger, pork cayenne, chicken and onion were the ingredients that contributed most strongly to a negative shared compound effect.

The primary source of this article is Food Product Design, Phoenix, Arizona, on December 16, 2011.

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