The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

by Michael Pollan

The browning of the chicken skin and the corn looked similar but in fact it owed to completely different chemical reactions, reactions that were contributing to their flavors and smells. The corn was caramelizing, as its sugars broke apart under the heat and formed into hundreds of more complicated aromatic compounds, giving a smoky dimension to the corny sweetness. Meanwhile, the chicken skin was undergoing what chemists called the Maillard reaction, in which carbohydrates in the chicken react in dry heat with certain amino acids to create an even larger and more complicated set of compounds that, because they include atoms of sulfur and nitrogen, give a richer, meatier aroma and taste to the meat than it would otherwise possess.