On Food and Cooking

sour, salty, and savory sensations. And when
they’re heated, they react with each other to
form hundreds of aromatic compounds. In
general, well-exercised muscle with a high
proportion of red fibers (chicken leg, beef)
makes more flavorful meat than less
exercised, predominantly white-fibered
muscle (chicken breast, veal). Red fibers
contain more materials with the potential for
generating flavor, in particular fat droplets
and fat-like components of the membranes
that house the cytochromes. They also have
more substances that help break these flavor
precursors down into flavorful pieces,
including the iron atoms in myoglobin and
cytochromes, the oxygen that those molecules
hold, and the enzymes that convert fat into
energy and recycle the cell’s proteins.