The Kitchen Reaction King

In 1912, French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard noticed something strange. When he heated amino acids with sugars, the mixture turned brown and developed complex aromas.

The Maillard reaction is not one reaction but a cascade of hundreds. It begins around 140°C, when amino acids and reducing sugars collide under heat. They rearrange into unstable compounds that keep reacting, branching into hundreds of different flavor and aroma molecules.