Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Recipes for Disaster

I had no idea that the community of randomised culinary research was so fiercely competitive! It seems, though that Substance McGravitas -- hitherto ahead of the field with his Janusnode template -- cannot afford to rest on his bayleaves, for here is a group of brash young newcomers and their "10,000 randomized recipe datasets". Sadly, they do not report having tried any of these ingredient combinations.

Ahn, Ahnert, Bagrow & Barabási also provide a useful Fig 2 to show the molecular associations among no fewer than 381 culinary ingredients, but not including Figs, so no recursion chiz chiz.

The backbone of the flavor network. Each node denotes an ingredient, the node color indicates food category, and node size reflects the ingredient prevalence in recipes. Two ingredients are connected if they share a significant number of flavor compounds, link thickness representing the number of shared compounds between the two ingredients.
This cook only has 10 ingredients in his Flavour Network. No wonder he looks so dejected.

The top Figure looks like something the Pentagon might produce for a Congressional briefing, to dramatise the interconnectedness of terrorist groups.

But what is that in the centre of the spiderweb...

Run for your lives! It's a trap!

19 comments:

Mandos said...

My South Asian background induces me to run *towards* cilantro, not *away*. The thought of cilantroless food makes my ancestors shudder.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

The cilantro orb will not be ignored.

The cilantro orb may be ignored.

The cilantro orb will not be ignored.

The cilantro orb may be ignored.
~

fish said...

The connections graph is deeply flawed. Perhaps Grizzled could come by and explain the obvious centrality of salt.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

not enough organ meats.

tigris said...

Organs: less meaty than you would expect.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

LOL, tigris has more content in the rollover text than in the actual comment.

Substance McGravitas said...

Where is the orb for edible petroleum products?

Smut Clyde said...

This organ is more abominable.

Smut Clyde said...

Can't find Brussels Sprouts anywhere in the network.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Where is the orb for edible petroleum products?

It's hidden in a warehouse owned by a division of Halliburton and guarded by Blackwater mercenaries.

Where is the orb for black water?

mikey said...

It's interesting that Cilantro lives in an overgrown lot filled with crack vials and body parts midway between Coffee's slick, modern edifice and some odd, un-named proteins in the Chicken family. This suggests that, while I like Cilantro in spicy and complex dishes like pad thai and chili, not to mention nature's perfect food, fish tacos, I have perhaps been overlooking opportunities to use large amounts of Cilantro in my hot, caffeinated beverages.

The wonderful things you learn on these here intert00bz...

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

I see no horse semen orb.

fish said...

Catherine, is that you?

Smut Clyde said...

VS needs to pay for the premium service if she wants to read the 'Riddled After Dark" version.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

VS needs to pay for the premium service if she wants to read the 'Riddled After Dark" version.

What would be the point? She's already downloaded the Sexy Smut photo.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Whew. That is one enticingly high forehead! But I ain't payin' for shit. I have even received my "Most Consistently Befuddled Riddled Reader" tote yet.

So pony---YES---up the dirty stuff NOW.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Haven't. Dammit.

Jennifer said...

Perhaps Grizzled could come by and explain the obvious centrality of salt.

I heard that.