Your kitchen is a physics lab

"Knowing some basic physics turns the world into a toybox."

Helen Czerski/The Guardian

In my part-time exploration of a food based curriculum in schools I came to a bit of a halt. I've been working my way through my own school curriculum and have reached science. Not my forte. I did general science at O-level - the exams you took at the age of 16, which involved a bit of physics, a bit of chemistry and a bit of biology. I also did a year of biology at university because we had to do one science subject if you were an Arts student, (and vice-versa of course). I definitely didn't do physics because by the time I finished physics at school I was struggling a bit.

Weirdly one of the things I remember about physics was that goldfish in a bowl - if they looked up to the light - would see the sky through a circle. I can now not remember the details but I do know it was something to do with how light was reflected - perhaps through water? Apparently it's called Snell's Window. It has nothing to do with the kitchen or cooking I know, but it shows, I think, how connecting something esoteric like physics to something real and everyday yet mysterious makes it more understandable and also more interesting and enjoyable.

However, when I had finished with my foodie arts subjects for this blog, I stalled when it came to physics. I mean it's such a vast subject and one that I don't really understand beyond really basic stuff. (Quick aside - I guess all subjects are potentially vast - people do PhDs on tiny bits of knowledge that they expand into years of research). I have been putting it off, so here is me drawing a breath and just skimming the surface of physics in the kitchen. Because I can at least see that physics is everywhere in the kitchen.

There are laws in physics and formulae. Complicated maths of the kind that has physics academics standing for hours in front of a blackboard and various equations that make no sense to most of us. Not even Einstein's theory of relativity. A bit like this recipe I found online - mysterious yet clear, and what on earth are all the numbers about - cost?, weights? Whatever they are it clearly shows that maths is involved. And physics too, did the recipe writer but know it - 'FRY BROWN'. Do the first (fry) and physics will provide the other (brown) - or is it Chemistry? To tell the truth when it comes to cooking I am sometimes uncertain whether I am talking about physics or chemistry - or maybe just general scientific theory.

Recipes are a case in point. After all what else is a recipe but a sort of formula although not necessarily a law? Not even a rule. Increasingly so it seems, although that old recipe from somebody's grandma has a world of possibility and experimentation wrapped in a few words and numbers.

The scientific method applies to all the sciences - and it applies to cooking too - well probably if you look into to it, to everything we do. So what is the scientific method?

"The scientific method is the process of objectively establishing facts through testing and experimentation. The basic process involves making an observation, forming a hypothesis, making a prediction, conducting an experiment and finally analyzing the results." TechTarget

And if that's not a description of cooking something I don't know what is. With respect to this diagram - which interestingly seems to have those processes in a different order - you start with the question, what shall I cook?, or what can I do with zucchini? ... Research - well check your cookbooks, cruise the net ... Hypothesis - either an idea that you have dreamt up or following somebody else's hypothesis - a recipe of some kind. Experiment - well somebody had experimented in devising the recipe, but you can also experiment by modifying an actual recipe, or making something up yourself. Analysis - what does it taste like? What could you have done to improve it? Conclusion - Are you going to make this again? Well that's just one way you could apply the priniciple of the scientific method. I'm sure there are others.

And here's one example of a chef applying the laws of physics and/or chemistry, certainly the scientific method to a particular dish - J. Kenji López-Alt and his Smoky stir-fried greens of which he says:

"'Wok hei', or the 'breath of a wok,' is the elusive smokiness found in restaurant-style dishes that rely on high-powered burners and a skilled hand to achieve it. To create a similar flavor at home, I rely on a hand-held blowtorch, which I use here for simple stir-fried greens." J. Kenji López-Alt

I'm guessing that entailed a fair degree of experimantation. But then every now and then I see the website Serious Eats, referred to as The Food Lab - indeed they published a book with that very name. And here's a coincidence - and partly why I am featuring this particular recipe I guess - that recipe is my today's recipe in my New York Times recipe desk calendar.

The scientific method applies to all the sciences but the laws of physics are specific to physics. Forgive me David I don't know all of them but I do know they involve things, like heat, energy, gravity, motion, magnetism, rotation and light. There are many, many more and I imagine that with greater or lesser degrees of effort an example can be found in any kitchen, whether it be simply to do with how all the gadgets in your kitchen work or were made, or what happens when you cook - from slicing an onion to cooking an omelette. Even to things like washing up. Nicholas Kurti - an eminent physicist - inspired some of our most 'scientific' chefs with a statement he made in a lecture:

"I think it is a sad reflection on our civilisation that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus, we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés." Nicholas Kurti

Now on an everyday basis, whilst you are cooking the dinner you are probably unlikely to ponder the physics of it all, but it's certainly valuable in so many different ways to introduce cooking into the physics curriculum as a way of printing something in the brain that will be remembered. Like me and the goldfish.

My first bit of 'research' for this article was an article in The Guardian entitled Lessons in life and the universe in a cup of tea by Helen Czerski which she begins with these words:

"Every human civilisation has seen the stars, but no one has touched them. Down here it’s the opposite: messy, changeable, and full of things we touch every day. This is the place to look if you’re interested in how the universe works."

Physics is patterns she proposes and they are all around us - beginning with pouring milk into a cup of tea and comparing to the clouds swirling over the earth:

"If you look down on the Earth from space, you will often see very similar swirls in the clouds, made where warm air and cold air waltz around each other instead of mixing directly."

And cooking is full of such comparisons - things that demonstrate a law, or make you ask questions, encourage you to experiment.

"Seeing what makes the world tick changes your perspective. The world is a mosaic of physical patterns, and once you’re familiar with the basics, you start to see how those patterns fit together. The essence of science is experimenting with the principles for yourself, considering all the evidence available and then reaching your own conclusions. The teacup is only the start." Helen Czerski/The Guardian

She could be describing how we learn to cook, learn the basics - from watching YouTube according to yesterday's writer Fliss Freeborn - and then experiment away, learning as you go that if you have the heat too high things will burn and that slow heat breaks things down in a completely different way, that if you drop a bowl on a hard floor it will break. And hopefully, mysteriously creating something that tastes delicious, but even so could be improved. Not to mention all those questions about how induction heaters and microwaves work.

I suspect that physics is one of those subjects that only attracts a certain kind of mind. The kind of mind that can deal with advanced maths, and maybe music too. Maybe they would think that messing around in the kitchen in an attempt to learn the laws of physics is pathetically childish. But to the rest of us mere mortals, if they used cooking as an illustrative tool for learning the laws of physics maybe some of us might get it more easily, and might even become interested in physics.

And it's certainly a way, as the late and wonderful Professor Julius Sumner Miller demonstrated, to draw young children into an interest in how and why things happen as they do which they might otherwise not have considered.

YEARS GONE BY

January 28

2024 - Tawook - it's just chicken

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Did consommé die?

2021 - A postscript on veganism

2020 - Green salad - my Elizabeth David crimes

2019 - Colour

2018 - Spirulina

2017 - You too can make gluten free bread