From Cookbooks to Networks: A Framework for Comparing

Overview

This source page is a mechanical bulk-ingest record for a PDF in the methylmercury infant-formula research pull. It preserves source-level identity, routeable product/analyte scope, and exact extracted numeric lines for later human or fresh-context audit. It does not derive HMTc thresholds, percentiles, or brand-by-brand comparisons.

Key numbers

The worker extracted the full PDF text with layout preservation twice and compared extraction hashes before commit. The following lines are copied from numeric/table-bearing regions of the PDF and retain the source units and wording where legible:

• 1 Faculty of Geography, Babes-Bolyai University, 535500 Gheorgheni, Romania; lorant.balint@ubbcluj.ro
• 2 Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Babes-Bolyai University, 400084 Cluj-Napoca, Romania;
• Using purposive sampling, we compiled a harmonized corpus of 1409 recipes and ap-
• a 14-class functional taxonomy. We computed density, clustering, modularity, and cen-
• Hungarian–Romanian–Armenian triangle (J > 0.95), whereas course-level results show
• in desserts dissolve ethnic boundaries (M < 0.17), main dishes actively guard cultural
• to the discipline of ‘computational gastronomy’ (1). This shift in perspective has yielded
• Accepted: 11 March 2026 systems. In this context, the network theory framework described by Barabási (2) allows for
• Published: 12 March 2026 a quantitative grasp of culinary systems through the lens of ingredient usage, co-occurrence,
• Copyright: © 2026 by the authors. and structural patterns.
• Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. A cornerstone of this field was established by the 2011 study by Ahn et al. (3), which
• are chemically similar. By comparison, Jain and colleagues (4) demonstrated during their
• comparison of national cuisines in the works of Caprioli et al. (5) and Tallab and Alrazgan (6)
• reference frame (19th to mid-20th century), focusing on sources that act as ‘salvage ethnog-
• As Appadurai (8) argues in his work, cookbooks are the primary media for creating,
• identity’ (9) and as dynamic carriers of cultural heritage (10,11), while simultaneously
• manner. Matta (12) and Tellström et al. (13) further emphasize how local food culture
• as an “ingredient” in the first place. More recently, Herrera’s (15) review shows that the
• has become a leading sector in cultural tourism development (16,17). The presentation of
• can enhance a region’s competitiveness and contribute to sustainable tourism (18,19). Hall
• and Sharples (20), as well as Scarpato (21), point out that gastronomy is no longer just
• ern tourist seeks authenticity (22), attempting to connect with the ‘sense of place’ (23)
• a destination (24). On the other hand, the gastronomic experience can also act as a barrier:
• RecipeDB (27) focuses on a curated ingredient structure linked to health attributes, moving
• recipe networks. Gössling et al. (30) urge the reduction in tourism’s ‘food footprint,’ the key
• to which lies in local sourcing and seasonality. Bessière (31) and Pietrykowski (32) highlight
• preservation of regional identity (33). In this context, mapping recipe networks holds
• through external descriptors. FlavorGraph (34) is a prime example, linking recipe-scale pat-
• between statistical tradition and chemical reality. Related projects like HyperFoods (35)
• global (38), Indian, or Western European cuisines, Central and Eastern Europe remains un-
• a buffer zone and melting pot between East and West. Kürti’s (39) anthropological research
• analyses (40). Although tourism literature has recognized the potential inherent in Tran-
• sylvania’s multicultural heritage (41–44), there is a lack of deep structural analysis that
• 3. Materials and Methods
• primary source types of Transylvanian culinary culture across both time (19th–21st cen-
• collections, from which 1409 recipes were recorded into a unified data schema:
• Biri Néni Szakácskönyve (Aunt Biri’s Cookbook) (45): The first and perhaps most well-
• known Transylvanian cookbook published in the early 20th century, outlining the core
• Două Sute De Ret, ete Cercate De Bucate, Prăjituri S, i Alte Trebi Gospodăres, ti (200 Tested
• Recipes for Dishes, Pastries, and Other Household Matters) (46): The first cookbook
• Spiced Up) (47): Beyond being a simple cookbook, this work functions as a form of gastro-
• that settled in Transylvania in the 17th century and subsequently assimilated linguistically.

Methods (brief)

• ers, soups, main dishes, desserts). For each cuisine, we generated split-sample stability
• Figure 1. Probabilities that the minimum within-cuisine split-sample Jaccard similarity exceeds the
• caution to ensure the smaller sample sizes do not lead to overinterpretation.
• 38. Sajadmanesh, S.; Jafarzadeh, S.; Osia, S.A.; Rabiee, H.R.; Haddadi, H.; Mejova, Y.; Musolesi, M.; De Cristofaro, E.; Stringhini, G.

Implications

This page makes the source discoverable for category-level evidence routing. Values remain source-native and should be used only with the stated matrix, species, basis, geography, and censoring context from the paper. The page does not convert total mercury to methylmercury or use total arsenic as inorganic arsenic.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• Fish — marine, non-predatory (sardines, anchovies, salmon, cod)
• Seaweed/kelp foods (nori, wakame, kombu, dulse — as food products)
• Lead
• Arsenic
• Nickel
• Aluminum

Verification notes

• Identity check: DOI, raw handle, candidate cite-key, and SHA-256 were compared against existing wiki/sources/ pages before creation.
• Full-PDF read: pdftotext -layout was run on the full PDF twice; extracted text hashes matched before the page was written.
• Numeric verification: numeric/table-bearing lines were selected mechanically from the verified extraction and preserved without unit conversion or rounding.
• Brand firewall: the worker skips PDFs when extracted numeric lines appear brand/manufacturer-sensitive; this page contains category-level or species-level evidence only.
• HMTc firewall: no threshold, percentile, pass/fail, clean/dirty, or certification math is stated.

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.