Name: South Carolina Corn Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups fine cornmeal; 2 cups wheat flour; 2 teaspoons salt; 1 pint mashed sweet potatoes; 1 cake yeast; warm water

Why it works: Wheat and sweet potato share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 59 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

South Carolina Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix 1 cup each of cornmeal and flour, then add enough warm water to form a stiff batter.
Add the yeast cake mixed with a small amount of water.
Keep the sponge in a warm place until it becomes light.
Scald the remaining cornmeal with boiling water, then let it cool.
Add the cooled cornmeal to the sponge and mix well.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Wheat + sweet potatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together59 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Flour + sweet potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together627 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).