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The networks of ingredient combinations as culinary fingerprints of world cuisines
Title / Series / Name
npj Science of Food
Publication Volume
9
Publication Issue
1
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Food Science
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Files
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/28715
Abstract
Investigating how different ingredients are combined in popular dishes is crucial to uncover the principles behind food preferences. Here, we use data from public food repositories and network analysis to characterize and compare worldwide cuisines. Ingredients are first grouped into broader types, and each cuisine is then represented as a network in which nodes correspond to ingredient types and weighted links describe how frequently pairs of types co-occur in recipes. Cuisines differ not only in the popularity of ingredient types and range of recipe sizes, but also in the structural organization of ingredient-type combinations. By analyzing these networks, we uncover distinctive patterns of type associations that serve as culinary fingerprints. For example, European cuisines typically distribute ingredients across different types, whereas certain Asian and South American traditions emphasize one dominant type, such as vegetables or spices. The essence of these patterns is well captured by the networks’ maximum spanning trees, which offer a simplified yet representative backbone for each cuisine. We demonstrate that both these full and simplified network representations enable machine learning models to identify cuisines from subsets of recipes with very high accuracy. Networks of ingredient combinations also cluster global cuisines into meaningful geo-cultural groups, reflecting shared patterns in culinary traditions. More broadly, our study offers novel insights into the structure of world cuisines, enabling data-driven approaches to their characterization, cross-cultural comparison, and potential adaptation.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2025-11-20
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1038/s41538-025-00588-4