In the mid-1800s, Scandinavian immigrants settling in the Midwest had no filters, no percolators, and no drip coffee makers to aid their quest for a cup of coffee. Instead, they Keep reading
Tag: cooking
Food-Based Fluid Dynamics
The kitchen is a rich source of fluid physics. From cocktails to coffee, from crepes to tempura, food is full of physics. In fact, it’s not hard to relate almost Keep reading
Listening to the Sizzle
The sizzle of frying food is familiar to many a cook, and that sound actually conveys a surprising amount of information. In this study, researchers suspended water droplets in hot Keep reading
Making Yeast-Free Pizza
Yeast is a key ingredient in many pizza doughs; as the yeast ferment sugars in the dough, they produce carbon dioxide which bubbles into the dough, creating the light and Keep reading
Listening to Tempura
Most cooks know that their frying oil isn’t hot enough if dropping the food in doesn’t create a furious burst of bubbles. But the canniest cooks know they can check Keep reading
Culinary Fluid Dynamics
I’ve long been a fan of exploring fluid dynamics from my own kitchen, and I’m far from the only one. One of the pioneers of interfacial physics developed most of Keep reading
Inside Old-Fashioned Butter
Today’s video is a little different: it’s an inside look at a butter-making shop in France that uses traditional nineteenth-century methods to process the butter. Watching workers fold and shape Keep reading
Why Food Sticks to Nonstick Pans
Whether you’re cooking with ceramic, Teflon, or a well-seasoned cast iron pan, it seems like food always wants to stick. It’s not your imagination: it’s fluid dynamics. As the thin Keep reading
The Physics of Al Dente
It’s a simple weeknight routine: toss a handful of spaghetti noodles in boiling water, wait a few minutes, and enjoy with the sauce of your choice. But there’s a surprising Keep reading
Kneading Dough
Kneading bread dough is something of an art. The process binds flour, water, salt, and yeast into a network that is both elastic and viscous. It also traps pockets of Keep reading