The graphic above summarizes ingredients that are most characteristic of a world-region’s recipes. It was inspired by a 2011 paper that examined connections between RECIPES – INGREDIENTS – FLAVOR-CHEMICALS.1 A major finding of this paper was that: A handful of common ingredients best distinguish and define Western and Eastern recipes [and flavor-chemical networks].

The graphic below provides a more detailed description on region-specific ingredients:

For more information on the “flavor-chemistry” portion of that paper’s analysis you can check out our posts: Flavor Chemistry, Food Aromas, and Cooking Chemistry.

Thanks to Lauren Brown for her assistance on this graphic!

REFERENCES:

Ahn, Yong-Yeol; Ahnert, Sebastian E.; Bagrow, James P. ; Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo. Flavor network and the principles of food pairing Scientific Reports, 2011, 1, 196. McGee, Harold. 1984. On Food and Cooking. New York, NY. Scribner pp. 272-274,389-400. Potter, Jeff. 2010. Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food. O’Reilly Media



This work by Eugene Douglass and Lauren Brown is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.