Flavour network-based analysis of food pairing: Application to the recipes of the sub-cuisines from Northeast India

The flavour network-based analysis of food pairing was applied to the sub-cuisines from Northeast India to examine the food pairing behaviour in terms of the co-occurrence of ingredients with the shared flavouring compounds in food recipes. The method applied was based on an existing procedure in computational gastronomy, wherein the preference for positive pairing is attributed to dairy-based ingredients and negative pairing behaviour is attributed primarily to spice based ingredients. Recipe data was subjected to backbone extraction, projection of the recipe-ingredient-compound tri-partite network, and analysis for prevalence and authenticity of ingredients. Further, the average flavour sharing index of the cuisine was determined with the help of the flavour profiles of the ingredients. The extent of deviation for the original cuisine in comparison to a random cuisine was used to determine the degree of bias in the food pairing behaviour, with the sign as the indicator of the nature of pairing. The analysis identified the ingredients responsible to exhibit a positive or negative pairing pattern in the sub-cuisines. The ingredients from the spice category were the most prevalent and have resulted in the negative pairing behaviour in the cuisines. This role of spices in effecting a negative pairing behaviour is in line with the earlier reports for other Indian regional cuisines.