Name: Canning Fruits
Ingredients: Fresh fruit (cherries, peaches, raspberries, pineapples, blackberries, crab-apples, strawberries, sour apples, plums, currants, whortleberries, pie-plant, small sour pears, Bartlett pears, wild grapes); Sugar; Water

Why it works: Plum and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Canning Fruits

Ingredients

Fresh fruit (cherries, peaches, raspberries, pineapples, blackberries, crab-apples, strawberries, sour apples, plums, currants, whortleberries, pie-plant, small sour pears, Bartlett pears, wild grapes)
Sugar
Water

Directions

Peel the fruit with a sharp knife and place it in cold water to prevent discoloration.
Prepare enough fruit for one can and layer it piece by piece in the can.
Pour clear syrup over the fruit.
Seal the can after applying heat as per the required time for each type of fruit.
For berries, select unbroken skins, fill cans compactly, and place them in a kettle of cold water.
Pour a syrup of white sugar dissolved in boiling water over the berries.
Cover the cans to retain heat and ensure they are full when cold by adding extra heated berries if needed.

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.

Plum + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Apple + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together649 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Peach + plumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Apple + plumtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, pineapple, crab, apple, plum, pear, bartlett pear):

Apricotfits better
Quincefits better
Vanillafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, pineapple, crab, apple, plum, pear, bartlett pear. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.