ABSTRACT
Knowledge of the chemistry of flavors is commonly perceived as a relatively recent development in food chemistry that evolved since the late 1950s with the advent of gas chromatography and fast-scan mass spectrometry. Although the availability of these instrumental tools has provided the means to definitively investigate the entire range of flavor substances, classic chemical techniques were elegantly applied in much earlier studies, especially for essential oils and spice extractives [28]. This extensive and somewhat separate focus of attention to perfumery, combined with a rapid, seemingly disorganized development about the chemistry of food flavors has contributed to a slow evolution of a discipline-oriented identity for the field of flavors.
