I think you can describe a group or mixture of chemicals in a chemical footprint in its particular chemical properties, for example, "an alkane chain of 80-85 carbons with an alcohol bound on carbon no. 21 and an ethyl-keto bond on second to the last carbon". Does not have to single out a chemical.
How many such chemicals and variations on them are found in, say, as single one of the herbs in the cheese in question? But then it's not just about the raw chemicals in say the herb plant cells, it's also about their structure and relationship with each other.
If you just took a list of all the chemical compounds in say the cells of a herb plant leaf and synthesized them in a chemical slurry I doubt it would taste much like the herb. Which chemicals in the leaf fragments actually evaporate causing the smell? Which ones diffuse into the cheese, and how does the structure mediate that?
