Kissing Cuisines: Exploring Worldwide Culinary Habits on the Web
This study addresses the lack of understanding in palate varieties for researchers and policymakers interested in global food culture and health correlations.
The paper tackled the problem of understanding worldwide culinary habits by analyzing over 157,000 recipes from 200 cuisines to identify ingredients, flavors, and nutritional values that distinguish regions, and linked these to health indicators like obesity and diabetes, confirming strong effects of geographical and cultural similarities.
Food and nutrition occupy an increasingly prevalent space on the web, and dishes and recipes shared online provide an invaluable mirror into culinary cultures and attitudes around the world. More specifically, ingredients, flavors, and nutrition information become strong signals of the taste preferences of individuals and civilizations. However, there is little understanding of these palate varieties. In this paper, we present a large-scale study of recipes published on the web and their content, aiming to understand cuisines and culinary habits around the world. Using a database of more than 157K recipes from over 200 different cuisines, we analyze ingredients, flavors, and nutritional values which distinguish dishes from different regions, and use this knowledge to assess the predictability of recipes from different cuisines. We then use country health statistics to understand the relation between these factors and health indicators of different nations, such as obesity, diabetes, migration, and health expenditure. Our results confirm the strong effects of geographical and cultural similarities on recipes, health indicators, and culinary preferences across the globe.