Users > Azhrei > Food

Flavor

A method of determining the flavor of a meal based on the ratios of ingredients has been discovered by Quizzical?. The details were announced in a post on the old forums.

The flavor of a given pair of foods at a given ratio is a constant.

This is what is being refered to in the second paragraph of the flavor section of the cooking page. A meal that is made of 35% abdju, 35% camel meat, and 30% of anything else will get +21 flavor from the 35% abdju - 35% camel meat pair The final flavor of the meal will be 21 plus the flavors from the other pairs in the meal.

(I'm taking these values from the cooking page. +21 looks wrong to me, in my experience the flavor given by a pair is always an even number).

This was determined by numerical analysis.

Take six ingredients most of which mix reasonably well pairwise. I used abdju, camel, mutton, phagrus, perch, and carp. Carp really doesn't belong there, but I didn't think of using a mushroom as the sixth. There are 20 possible triples of ingredients to choose from there, but only 15 possible pairs. That means that, if we make all possible meals at a 1:1:1 ratio, we get 20 meals, but only 15 modifiers. It should then be possible to solve the system of 20 equations in 15 variables and see what the solutions are.

Keep in mind that, with six more equations than variables, if there was no pattern, then there would probably be no solutions at all. Since 15 of the equations were linearly independent, there could not possibly be more than one solution. For the sake of completeness, the flavor of the triples is:

Abdju/Camel/Mutton 154
Abdju/Camel/Phagrus 158
Abdju/Camel/Perch 146
Abdju/Camel/Carp 138
Abdju/Mutton/Phagrus 140
Abdju/Mutton/Perch 134
Abdju/Mutton/Carp 126
Abdju/Phagrus/Perch 126
Abdju/Phagrus/Carp 120
Abdju/Perch/Carp 110
Camel/Mutton/Phagrus 132
Camel/Mutton/Perch 130
Camel/Mutton/Carp 122
Camel/Phagrus/Perch 130
Camel/Phagrus/Carp 124
Camel/Perch/Carp 118
Mutton/Phagrus/Perch 116
Mutton/Phagrus/Carp 110
Mutton/Perch/Carp 110
Phagrus/Perch/Carp 100

Solve for the modifiers of the pairs and we get:

Abdju/Camel +26
Abdju/Mutton +18
Abdju/Phagrus +16
Abdju/Perch +8
Abdju/Carp +4
Camel/Mutton +10
Camel/Phagrus +16
Camel/Perch +12
Camel/Carp +8
Mutton/Phagrus +6
Mutton/Perch +8
Mutton/Carp +4
Phagrus/Perch +2
Phagrus/Carp 0
Perch/Carp -2

Simply take 100, add the three modifiers corresponding to the three pairs in a triple, and recover the flavor of the triple of ingredients. A solution not only exists, but gives even integers for everything, as flavor requires.

Implicit in this discovery is that the quantities are significant. The solution is only valid for pairs that are 33.3% - 33.3%. A meal that is 10% abdju - 10% camel meat will not get +26 flavor from the pair.

This has been shown to extend to meals with 4 or more ingredients.

Unfortunately, there is no known method of predicting the modifier that will be found for a given pair. Only brute force cooking and numerical analysis has been able to determine the modifiers.

Compliments and Clashes

Here is the information I've collected on the tastes found in foods, and how the compliment and clash with each other.

• abdju : fishy rich salty
• barley : bitter bland fragrant rich sweet
• cabbage : bland vegetal watery
• camel meat : greasy rich salty sweet
• camel milk : creamy salty sweet
• carp : fishy rich salty sweet
• carrot : crunchy sweet
• catfish : bitter fishy rich
• chicken : bland fragrant rich
• chromis : fishy rich salty sour sweet
• date : chewey creamy salty sweet
• garlic : bitter pungent rich sweet
• honey : fragrant rich sweet
• leek : bitter rich sweet vegetal
• malapterurus : bitter fishy sweet
• malt : bitter bland rich sweet
• mushroom : rich
• mutton : greasy rich salty sweet
• onion : bitter rich sweet vegetal
• oxyrynchus : fishy rich salty sweet
• perch : fishy rich salty sweet
• phagrus : fishy rich sweet
• rabbit : chewey rich sweet
• tilapia : fishy rich sweet

I can produce a recipe that reveals each of these tastes. If you have a recipe that reveals a taste not in my list, I'd appreciate having it for my collection.

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• + is a compliment, - is a clash

Similarly, I can provide recipes that reveal each of these interactions, and would be happy to find out about any I'm missing.

It is difficult to predict which compliments and clashes will be revealed for a given meal. Take the following two meals:

• 1 camel meat, 1 perch - fishy(perch) compliments salty(camel meat)
• 1 camel meat, 1 tilapia - fishy(tilapia) compliments salty(camel meat)

It seems reasonable to use this to make predictions about the compliments of 1 camel meat, 1 perch, 1 tilapia:

• The camel-perch compliment is strongest, giving fishy(perch) compliments salty(camel meat)
• or, The camel-tilapia compliment is strongest, giving fishy(tilapia) compliments salty(camel meat)
• or, The perch-tilapia compliment is strongest, giving something new.

However, the real result is:

• 1 camel meat, 1 perch, 1 tilapia - rich(perch) compliment salty(camel meat)

This leaves me wondering why 1 camel meat, 1 perch doesnt have the rich(perch)/salty(camel meat) compliment.

There appears to be at least a general relationship between compliments, clashes, and flavor. Matching up the foods involved and tallying the plusses and minuses will provide a rough idea of how the dish will taste.