Flavour Characteristics of Fermented Meat Products in China: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

This manuscript can not be understood due to translation problems. 

I do not recognized chemical reactions called  "meladic reaction" or "melad reaction" and this make the manuscript to be very difficult to read it.

Please correct and revise the whole paper before submit it to a journal.

Author Response

I would like to thank you very much for your professional comments on my article. As your concern, there are several questions that I need to answer, and they are answered as follows.

Q1: This manuscript can not be understood due to translation problems.

Thanks for your comments. According to your comments, we have asked a professional English agency to revise the translation of the article, which makes the article more convenient to read and understand. We also have drawn some graphs and tables in the article to clarify and explain some of our views more clearly, which also makes the article easier to read and understand.

Q2: I do not recognized chemical reactions called  "meladic reaction" or "melad reaction" and this make the manuscript to be very difficult to read it.

Thanks for your comments. Due to a translation error, "meladic reaction" or "melad reaction" should actually be "Maillard reaction", which we have corrected in the article.

Q3: Please correct and revise the whole paper before submit it to a journal.

Thanks for your comments. We have carefully corrected and revised the whole article, and have consulted professional English institutions for translation.

Reviewer 2 Report

Article provides interesting look into flavor compounds in fermented meats from China. However, the article is lacking in terms of properly explaining the fermentation process and how it contributes to flavor compound formation. Authors often mention compounds are formed during fermentation through enzymatic and chemical reactions, but there needs to be at least an introductory paragraph citing general aspects of meat fermentation. There are no examples of microorganisms used or fermentation conditions. 

 

Authors also seem to not understand the Maillard reaction and often cite the Meladic reaction. Not sure if this is an error and authors actually mean Maillard reaction when they cite Meladic reaction .

 

Paragraphs are very long and hard to ready. Need to shorten the paragraphs by dividing large paragraphs into 2 or 3. 

 

Following are specific suggestions:

 

 

Line 14: change degradation to breakdown. Degradation almost implies a negative process.

 

Line 17: eliminate the word special. The compounds are not special, they are simply the resulting compounds from the breakdown of proteins and lipids.

 

Line 21: Different from what? The line states the fermented meat products in China are different. What are they different from? The rest of the world? Western products? Please specify

 

Line 46: Eliminate “has become more and more enthusiastic” and replace with increased.

 

Line 48: Replace “has not been fully understood so far” with “is not fully understood”

 

Line 61 – 62 : amino acids are not degraded by Strecker, there are Strecker degradation reaction products that are produced during the Maillard Browning reaction as a consequence of breakdown of products. Also, I am assuming Meladic reaction is an error and should say Maillard reaction? Please address these lines

 

Line 72: Do you mean Maillard reaction? Not sure what Meladic reaction is

 

Line 79 – 80: What is an amino acid Strecker? This line is unclear

 

Line 71 – 94: This is an extremely long paragraph that becomes difficult to read. Please split into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

 

Line 105 – 112: There is an introduction to Maillard reaction concept. I believe when authors cite the Meladic reaction before they are actually referring to the Maillard reaction. This needs t be addressed, it almost seems like authors don’t understand what the Maillard reaction is.

 

Line 115 – 197: This is an extremely long paragraph. Needs to be split into 2 or 3 paragraphs. There are also multiple grammatical and punctuation errors. Manuscript needs to be proof read and corrected before it can be published.

 

Line 198 – 274: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

 

Line 275 – 324: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

 

Line: 325 – 384: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

 

Line 385 – 413: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs

Editing of English language is required. Grammar mistakes can bee seen all over the paper, making the manuscript difficult to understand at times. 

Author Response

I would like to thank you very much for your professional comments on my article. As your concern, there are several questions that I need to answer, and they are answered as follows.

Q1:lacking in terms of properly explaining the fermentation process and how it contributes to flavor compound formation.

Thanks for your comments. We briefly explain this in lines 63 to 68 of the revised article and in each specific type of fermented meat product later in the article. It is also shown more intuitively in the figure below.

Q2: There are no examples of microorganisms used or fermentation conditions.

Thanks for your comments. We have given some examples of microbes on dry-cured ham in line 186, line 196 of the revised paper. We have given some examples of microbes on sausages in lines 266 to 276 of the revised paper.

Q3: change degradation to breakdown. Degradation almost implies a negative process.

Thanks for your comments. Since Degradation almost implies a negative process, we change degradation to breakdown, which is on line 14 of the revised article.

Q4: eliminate the word special. The compounds are not special, they are simply the resulting compounds from the breakdown of proteins and lipids.

Thanks for your comments. We realized that these compounds are not special and deleted the word "special”, which is on line 17 of the revised article.

Q5: Different from what? The line states the fermented meat products in China are different. What are they different from? The rest of the world? Western products? Please specify.

Thanks for your comments. In this paper, we want to explain that different types of fermented meat products in China (such as dry-cured ham, sausage, cured meat, etc.) are different from each other. In order to better express this meaning, we have added parenthetical notes to explain, which is on line 20 to 23 of the revised article.

Q6: Eliminate “has become more and more enthusiastic” and replace with increased.

Thanks for your comments. We have Eliminated "has become more and more enthusiastic" and replaced it with "increased", which is on line 48 of the revised article.

Q7: Replace “has not been fully understood so far” with “is not fully understood”.

Thanks for your comments. We have Replaced “has not been fully understood so far” with “is not fully understood”, which is on line 49 of the revised article.

Q8: amino acids are not degraded by Strecker, there are Strecker degradation reaction products that are produced during the Maillard Browning reaction as a consequence of breakdown of products. Also, I am assuming Meladic reaction is an error and should say Maillard reaction? Please address these lines.

Thanks for your comments. We modified these lines for amino acid degradation and the Maillard reaction, which is on line 62 to 63 of the revised article.

Q9: Do you mean Maillard reaction? Not sure what Meladic reaction is.

Thanks for your comments. What we're trying to say is the Maillard reaction, which has been revised in the article, which is on line 78 of the revised article.

Q10: What is an amino acid Strecker? This line is unclear.

Thanks for your comments. We have revised this line to make its meaning clearer, which is on line 84 to 85 of the revised article.

Q11: This is an extremely long paragraph that becomes difficult to read. Please split into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

Thanks for your comments. We divided these contents into two paragraphs for easy reading, and consulted professional English institutions to revise the language problems, which is on line 77 to 101 of the revised article.

Q12: There is an introduction to Maillard reaction concept. I believe when authors cite the Meladic reaction before they are actually referring to the Maillard reaction. This needs t be addressed, it almost seems like authors don’t understand what the Maillard reaction is.

Thanks for your comments. In this paragraph, we would like to explain that the Maillard reaction is accompanied by the formation of heterocyclic compounds in the fermentation process of meat products. We have consulted a professional English institution to revise the language. which is on line 112 to 119 of the revised article.

Q13: This is an extremely long paragraph. Needs to be split into 2 or 3 paragraphs. There are also multiple grammatical and punctuation errors. Manuscript needs to be proof read and corrected before it can be published.

Thanks for your comments. This paragraph describes the flavor characteristics of dry-cured ham. We have divided these contents into three paragraphs for easy reading, and consulted a professional English editing agency for grammar modification. which is on line 122 to 201 of the revised article. And there are graphs or tables in the following text to make the content more readable

Q14: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

Thanks for your comments. This paragraph describes the flavor characteristics of sausage. We have divided these contents into three paragraphs for easy reading, and consulted a professional English editing agency for grammar modification. which is on line 203 to 276 of the revised article. And there are graphs or tables in the following text to make the content more readable

Q15: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

Thanks for your comments. This paragraph describes the flavor characteristics of preserved meat. We have divided these contents into three paragraphs for easy reading, and consulted a professional English editing agency for grammar modification. which is on line 278 to 327 of the revised article. And there are graphs or tables in the following text to make the content more readable

Q16: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

Thanks for your comments. This paragraph describes the flavor characteristics of cured fish. We have divided these contents into three paragraphs for easy reading, and consulted a professional English editing agency for grammar modification. which is on line 329 to 389 of the revised article. And there are graphs or tables in the following text to make the content more readable

Q17: Again, a paragraph that is simply too long to read. Needs to be broken down into 2 or 3 paragraphs.

Thanks for your comments. This paragraph describes the flavor characteristics of sour meat. We have divided these contents into two paragraphs for easy reading, and consulted a professional English editing agency for grammar modification. which is on line 391 to 418 of the revised article. And there are graphs or tables in the following text to make the content more readable.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Your manuscript has improved significantly after corrections. 

No further changes are needed.

Thank you.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for the corrections. The article looks great