  We discuss the flavor of leading jet partons as a valuable probe of nuclear
matter. We point out that the coupling of jets to nuclear matter naturally
leads to an alteration of jet chemistry even at high transverse momentum $p_T$.
In particular, QCD jets coupling to a chemically equilibrated quark gluon
plasma in nuclear collisions, will lead to hadron ratios at high transverse
momentum $p_T$ that can differ significantly from their counterparts in $p+p$
collisions. Flavor measurements could complement energy loss as a way to study
interactions of hard QCD jets with nuclear matter. Roughly speaking they probe
the inverse mean free path $1/\lambda$, while energy loss probes the average
squared momentum transfer $\mu^2/\lambda$. We present some estimates for the
rate of jet conversions in a consistent Fokker-Planck framework and their
impact on future high-$p_T$ identified hadron measurements at RHIC and LHC. We
also suggest some novel observables to test flavor effects.
