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For cooking under scientific conditions I see advanced scientific kitchen equipment for all culinary tasks.
Electrophoresis or polymerase chain reaction home testing kits to obtain the genetic fingerprint of ingredients; we want to avoid those nasty GM foods after all.
Carbon
filtered fume cupboards to BS EN ISO 14644-1 1999 ISO Class 5 and FED STD 209E M3-5 100 to avoid cooking smells.
An MRI scanner to make sure the turkey is stuffed optimally.
A home oxygen bomb calorimeter to ISO 1716 for routine and occasional calorific tests; I’m on a diet at the moment.
A mass spectrometer to get the signature dish just right.
An autoclave for the washing up.
An extensive library of peer reviewed recipes tested using double blind testing with random placebo dinners. Never have a cooking-cock-up again.
Nobel prize for cookery anyone?
The inspiration
Kitchen_20Hardware_20Chain_2c_20For_20Men
On the shoulders of giants [DenholmRicshaw, Feb 28 2005]
On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee
http://www.amazon.c...53-1953765?v=glance
[hippo, Mar 01 2005]
I want one
http://www.brookfie...laboratory/dial.cfm
Could work for gravy too [DenholmRicshaw, Mar 01 2005]
Heston Blumenthal
http://www.google.c...blumenthal+nitrogen
...cooks with liquid nitrogen [hippo, Mar 03 2005]
Molotov cocktail
http://www.webtender.com/db/drink/4920
[angel, Mar 04 2005]
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Annotation:
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As long as you don't bring out the
Gilson to serve me after-dinner brandy. |
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Titrate the perfect cocktail |
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I've a set of small beakers I drink sake out of. |
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It needs to be instrumented with data recording systems and transducers so that each cooking experiment automatically is documented in detail. |
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All ingredients certified pure to four nines. |
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I think an MRI real-time scan upgrade pack is a "must have" to allow real time scanning of the brain during the meal to check that your guests are enjoying it. |
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Cooking temperatures in Kelvin
Measurements in metric units to 6 decimal places; 2/3 cup of flour just won't do. |
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And I used to laugh at people spending £10,000 on a new kitchen. |
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All you need is Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" (link) - a classic work explaining the science behind the food we eat and the cooking and preparation processes used. I'd recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in the subject. |
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Kitchen hardware chain for mad scientists? + |
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The options are never-ending. Next a DIY workshop chain with departments for cooks, sportsmen, teachers and farmers. Actually, it's quite simple for farmers: just some string and duct-tape. |
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kitchen hardware chain for witches <cackle> |
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Ooh, nice Le Crueset cauldrons! |
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And, of course, you should always purchase twice the amount of ingredients as you require so that you can have an unprepared and uncooked meal as a control. |
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Why would a scientist want to avoid GM foods? That is an irrational fear after all. |
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I thought we did this one already, way back when. Or wait, that was the cookbook. |
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We had a mulled wine and mince pies party in the lab last Christmas where we cooked the mulled wine in 5 litre beakers on stirrer hotplates (the magnetic stirrer bars are still red) and served peanuts in crucibles. We also had an old GC oven that had a garlic bread program (120 for 5 @ 10 degrees a minute to 180 for 2) |
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Incidentally, the mass spec itself won't help as much as a GC/MS for flavour analysis. |
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[hazel]: Reminds me of the Christmas party when I worked in a pharmaceutical lab. Sausage rolls cooked in a muffle furnace, cocktails made from diluted absolute alcohol mixed with the flavourings for medicine. |
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//Reminds me of the Christmas party when I worked in a pharmaceutical lab. Sausage rolls cooked in a muffle furnace, cocktails made from diluted absolute alcohol mixed with the flavourings for medicine.// |
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That's the idea. Although to be honest, I've rather gone of lab alcohol drinks as I've found supermarkets sell stuff that tastes *so* much better. |
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Better than quadruple-strength vodka with licorice and blackcurrant flavouring? |
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I get strange voltages on my equipment when I fry with white noise. |
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I was going to suggest a microtome for the pepperoni, but I think my local pizza joint already has one.
Liquid N2 cooled ice-cream maker? |
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Dial Reading Viscometer (link) to get your custard just so. |
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+. Is there a big enough centrifuge to drain drain your salad/rice etc? |
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We're going to have to build an extension to house an x-ray laboratory with comprehensive macromolecular crystallographic data collection systems to select the perfect crystals of margarita salt for the perfect cocktail. |
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[Denholm] That way you can get just the right twist of salt. |
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How about some sugar, with the other handed twist, so that one may eat as much of it as one likes, without putting on weight? (would it taste sweet?) |
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Chiral Cocktails.
Pleochroic Punch. |
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yes, that was on the tip of my tongue, but I forgot the "pyranoside" bit. |
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You'll suck all the fun out of it. Does anone really enjoy doing titrations? What you really want to do is throw things together and see what happens.* |
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What I propose is a kitchen hardware chain, for mad scientists. Or at least a mad scientist section. |
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I could try to cook things with a giant microwave beam, caramelise things with a laser, pour liguid ingredients through curly tubes, and most importantly, have a robot henchman who does the washing up. |
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Heh, I'd probably shop at the normal place though (if I had money!), even if not for the correct purpose, so you get a half chared (by carelessly positioned lasers) croissant. |
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*Disclamer: Theoretical physics may not be teaching me to fully appreciate the joys of practical chemistry. |
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[You'll suck all the fun out of it.]
Excellent! an opportunity to purchase an ultra vacuum chamber. |
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//How about some sugar, with the other handed twist, so that one may eat as much of it as one likes, without putting on weight? (would it taste sweet?)// |
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No - L-sugars don't taste sweet. |
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Ah, thanks Hazel. Something to do with 'enantiomers' & all natural sugars give a right (?) hand twist to light? |
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A dry martinni please, centrifuged not stirred. |
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I'm a bit worried about the centrifuge and whether it would give the absolute perfection we need here. It would presumably spin about a horizontal plane so that the glasses (I'm assuming a pair for balance) would be on their sides. As the centrifuge slows and the glasses return to vertical I can imagine that the perfectly distinct layers might mix in an unsightly way. Gravity is not our friend here.
Luckily those Kitchen Hardware chaps have a solution (although arguably only just within their scientific remit). Build a rocket launch pad in the back garden. Install an annex to the kitchen in the rocket which includes the cocktail centrifuge and launch for low Earth orbit. Whilst in orbit, the cocktail can be created perfectly whilst zero gravity conditions apply.
Getting the cocktail back to Earth will require the "Low Earth Orbit Gyroscopically Stabilised Cocktail Re-entry Module". The absolute opposite of a cocktail shaker if you will.
I reckon the round trip time would be a couple of hours. Worth the wait I think. |
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Heston Blumenthal's cooking leans in this direction. He uses things like liquid nitrogen in his cooking (and has 3 Michelin stars) - see link. |
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Let's hope they don't serve molotov cocktails here (I once heard that some idiot actually ORDERED one at a swanky hotel), even if it is for scientists. |
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[froglet]: re "some idiot"; see (linky). |
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//Ah, thanks Hazel. Something to do with 'enantiomers' & all natural sugars give a right (?) hand twist to light?// |
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[chemistry lesson]
That's the idea. Various compounds, such as sugars and amino acids, can exist in two mirror forms (enantiomers) which rotate light in different directions. Naturally occurring amino acids are invariably the L-form (rotate light left, laevorotatory) whilst naturally ocurring sugars are generally the D-form (rotate light right, dextrorotatory). Our bodies are designed to cope with the D-sugars so our taste receptors aren't designed to cope with the L- forms.[/cl] |
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Stop it! You're reminding me of my pharmaceutical lab days again! |
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I've just bought some Bosonic Custard Powder.
Cool it sufficiently (good-oh - I can use the magnetic evaporative cooling equipment I bought last week) and it forms a Bose-Einstein condensate. Result - zero viscosity custard! |
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Might be tricky to eat though. |
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I heard a mention on NPR today that an emphasis on the science of cooking will be the new fad for restaurants in the coming years. |
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// I heard a mention on NPR today that an emphasis on the science of cooking will be the new fad for restaurants in the coming years // |
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It very much is in Heston Blumenthal's restaurant [see hippo's link] which has amazing food and is incidentally where [jonthegeologist] and I got engaged, thereby setting the scene for many anniversary meals in the future. Hurrah! |
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"No, we have to run a few more tests." |
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