Microbial flavour production

Abstract

For thousands of years microbial processes have accompanied mankind playing the decisive but unrecognised role of producing more flavourful foods and beverages such as bread, cheese, beer, wine and soy sauce. It was in 1923 that the first scientific review on microbial flavours appeared [1]. With the dynamic development of modern analytical techniques in the middle of the twentieth century when isolation, chromatographic separation and structural identification of volatiles became routine, the basis for a more systematic elucidation of microbial flavour generation was given.Research in the last decades has led to a tremendous increase in knowledge of microbial and enzymatic flavour generation which has been frequently reviewed [2-8] and was reviewed in several multiauthor works dealing with this topic [9], [10] and one comprehensive book exclusively dedicated to aroma biotechnology published in 1995 [11]. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.