the.com/maillard reaction
The chemistry that turns bland food brown, crusty, and worth living for.
means A chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars that occurs when food is heated, creating hundreds of new flavor and aroma compounds along with that brown crust.
from Named after Louis-Camille Maillard, a French physician and chemist who described the reaction in the early 1910s while actually investigating how amino acids and sugars combine in the body — he was chasing biology, not dinner, and food science only caught up to claim his name decades later.
- not caramelization
- sugars alone caramelize; this needs amino acids too
- temperature threshold
- kicks in around 280°F, so boiling never browns
- discovered by accident
- french chemist found it in 1912 studying proteins
- flavor factory
- creates hundreds of new aroma compounds per food