FLAVOR CHEMISTRY OF TOMATO VOLATILES

Abstract

SUMMARY 38 compounds were identified in tomato volatiles. Some of these had not been reported previously. Many factors, namely, fruit maturity, the physical condition of the fruit, the type of fruit crushing, the holding time of the juice or pulp after crushing, heat and oxygen were important for the development of certain tomato volatiles. Linolenic acid was indicated to be the precursor of cis‐3‐hexenal which developed during tissue maceration. fn turn, cis‐3‐ehexenal appeared to be the source of tram‐2‐hexenal. Some of the compounds were found to be important to tomato flavor. 2‐lsobutylthiazole and cis‐3‐hexenal appeared to intensify the fresh tomato flavor notes. 2‐lsobutylthiazole was also responsible for the characteristic flavor of certain tomato varieties. The quality of tomato volatiles appeared to depend on the interrelationships of both enzymic and chemical reactions that occurred during the preparative treatments used to isolate the volatiles.