Three real ingredient pairs. Guess how many flavor compounds each pair has in common, then see the published number. Nothing you tap leaves this page.
Pair 1 of 3
060120
40shared compounds — your guess
is the published figure
You
Actual
Result
Coffee and beef share 102. Almost nobody guesses this high. It is the paper’s own example of an unusually compound-rich pairing.
Shrimp and lemon share 9 — and it is one of the best-loved combinations on earth.
Chocolate and blue cheese share at least 73, which is the reasoning behind restaurants that serve them together.
That gap is the whole point. The study found North American and Western European recipes favour compound-sharing pairs more than chance predicts, while East Asian and Southern European recipes favour them less. Sharing chemistry is a measurable pattern in how people cook. It is not a rule for what tastes good.
Figures from Ahn, Ahnert, Bagrow & Barabási, “Flavor network and the principles of food pairing,” Scientific Reports 1:196 (2011) — open access. Coffee/beef and shrimp/lemon are the paper’s Figure 3 examples; chocolate/blue cheese is stated in its introduction as “at least 73.”