Pork is a meat with 428 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is roast-burnt-sweet. It pairs most strongly with onion, sharing 167 flavor compounds. Pork appears in 40,342 recipes, most commonly in world cuisine.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Pork's inventory contains 90. Most of the other 338 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 78 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Pork's 428 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
247 of 428 are distinctive to pork — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in pork — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by median concentration across published studies. Only 3 of Pork's 428 compounds have a measured concentration in the literature — the rest are confirmed present but not yet quantified. Bars are log-scaled.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Pork and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Pork side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
Chinese indigenous pork is popular with consumers for its unique aroma, but the formation mechanism of this aroma during high-temperature processing remains unclear. This study eva... Read abstract →
Systematically deconstructing flavor divergence in reheated cuisine is crucial for optimizing its sensory quality. This study pioneeringly integrated multi-omics approaches (E-nose... Read abstract →
To clarify the characteristic aroma compounds and flavor discrepancies of five Chinese typical pig species, headspace-solid phase microextraction gas chromatography-olfactometry-ma... Read abstract →
This study developed an intelligent and antibacterial packaging film using a chitosan matrix embedding oregano essential oil (OEO) and black rice bran anthocyanin (BRBA). Herein, O... Read abstract →
A novel antibacterial indicator film was prepared by mixing corn starch with tangerine peel essential oil (TEO) Pickering emulsion emulsified by ultrasonic and esterified modified... Read abstract →
