Pumpkin is a fruit with 120 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline. It pairs most strongly with cinnamon, sharing 89 flavor compounds. Pumpkin appears in 5,330 recipes, most commonly in indian cuisine.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Pumpkin's inventory contains 32. Most of the other 88 compounds are below detection threshold.
+ 20 more — showing top 12 by class and threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Pumpkin's 120 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
23 of 120 are distinctive to pumpkin — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in pumpkin — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Pumpkin and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Pumpkin side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
Pumpkin is a widely recognized plant in the Cucurbitaceae family because of its significance as a pharmaceutical food. Ozonized oils are becoming more popular among researchers and... Read abstract →
The goal of this review is to provide an overview of the current findings on the major carotenoids and their content in pumpkin products and by-products. The content of total carot... Read abstract →
The present study was performed to evaluate the in vivo efficiency of Curcurbita pepo (pumpkin) seeds, Cymbopogon citratus (lemongrass) essential oil and Plantago lanceolata (riple... Read abstract →
Seeds play important roles in human nutrition and health since ancient time. The term "specialty" has recently been applied to seeds to describe high-value and/or uncommon food pro... Read abstract →
Ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs) consist of three varieties. Type 1 RIPs are single-chained and approximately 30-kDa in molecular weight. Type 2 RIPs are double-chained and co... Read abstract →
