Name: Pickled Damsons
Ingredients: 6 lbs damsons; 3 cups loaf sugar; 1 stick cinnamon; 1 pint vinegar

Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pickled Damsons

Ingredients

6 lbs damsons
3 cups loaf sugar
1 stick cinnamon
1 pint vinegar

Directions

Make the syrup

Make a syrup by combining sugar and vinegar in a pot.

Pickle and bottle

Pour the syrup over the damsons and let sit overnight.
The next day, pour off the syrup and bring it to a boil again.
Combine the syrup and damsons, bring to a boil, and then bottle.

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.

Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cinnamon + vinegartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,187 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Damsons: Provide the fruit that is softened and flavoured by the pickling syrup.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit in the syrup.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.