The networks of ingredient combinations as culinary fingerprints of world cuisines

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Caprioli, Claudio, Kulkarni, Saumitra, Battiston, Federico, Iacopini, Iacopo, Santoro, Andrea, Latora, Vito
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Caprioli, Claudio
Kulkarni, Saumitra
Battiston, Federico
Iacopini, Iacopo
Santoro, Andrea
Latora, Vito
author_facet Caprioli, Claudio
Kulkarni, Saumitra
Battiston, Federico
Iacopini, Iacopo
Santoro, Andrea
Latora, Vito
contents Investigating how different ingredients are combined in popular dishes is crucial to uncover the principles behind food preferences. Here, we use data from public food repositories and network analysis to characterize and compare worldwide cuisines. Ingredients are first grouped into broader types, and each cuisine is then represented as a network in which nodes correspond to ingredient types and weighted links describe how frequently pairs of types co-occur in recipes. Cuisines differ not only in the popularity of ingredient types and range of recipe sizes, but also in the structural organization of ingredient-type combinations. By analyzing these networks, we uncover distinctive patterns of type associations that serve as culinary fingerprints. For example, European cuisines typically distribute ingredients across different types, whereas certain Asian and South American traditions emphasize one dominant type, such as vegetables or spices. The essence of these patterns is well captured by the networks' maximum spanning trees, which offer a simplified yet representative backbone for each cuisine. We demonstrate that both these full and simplified network representations enable machine learning models to identify cuisines from subsets of recipes with very high accuracy. Networks of ingredient combinations also cluster global cuisines into meaningful geo-cultural groups, reflecting shared patterns in culinary traditions. More broadly, our study offers novel insights into the structure of world cuisines, enabling data-driven approaches to their characterization, cross-cultural comparison, and potential adaptation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_15162
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The networks of ingredient combinations as culinary fingerprints of world cuisines
Caprioli, Claudio
Kulkarni, Saumitra
Battiston, Federico
Iacopini, Iacopo
Santoro, Andrea
Latora, Vito
Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
Investigating how different ingredients are combined in popular dishes is crucial to uncover the principles behind food preferences. Here, we use data from public food repositories and network analysis to characterize and compare worldwide cuisines. Ingredients are first grouped into broader types, and each cuisine is then represented as a network in which nodes correspond to ingredient types and weighted links describe how frequently pairs of types co-occur in recipes. Cuisines differ not only in the popularity of ingredient types and range of recipe sizes, but also in the structural organization of ingredient-type combinations. By analyzing these networks, we uncover distinctive patterns of type associations that serve as culinary fingerprints. For example, European cuisines typically distribute ingredients across different types, whereas certain Asian and South American traditions emphasize one dominant type, such as vegetables or spices. The essence of these patterns is well captured by the networks' maximum spanning trees, which offer a simplified yet representative backbone for each cuisine. We demonstrate that both these full and simplified network representations enable machine learning models to identify cuisines from subsets of recipes with very high accuracy. Networks of ingredient combinations also cluster global cuisines into meaningful geo-cultural groups, reflecting shared patterns in culinary traditions. More broadly, our study offers novel insights into the structure of world cuisines, enabling data-driven approaches to their characterization, cross-cultural comparison, and potential adaptation.
title The networks of ingredient combinations as culinary fingerprints of world cuisines
topic Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15162