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The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

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Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#11

Post by tptacek »

ebbv wrote: post #3

This isn't a hard question. There's two reasons pepperonis curl. One is that the top is cooking faster than the bottom, and as with any piece of meat that will cause it to curl towards the surface being cooked faster. The other reason is that the edge of the pepperoni cooks faster than the middle, that means that the edge experiences tension which causes the pepperoni to fold.

The article addresses both of these factors and introduces an additional important factor your comment doesn't mention. It may be a harder question than you think.

Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#12

Post by harveywi »

kazinator wrote: post #2

I think it has something to do with the Curl Theorem: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CurlTheorem.html It's the relationship between the line integral around the sausage (what the S stands for in δS) and the surface integral.

For n Generalizing to n >= 5 dimensions would expand on the well-known Sausage Conjecture.

[1] http://socg2016.cs.tufts.edu/

[2] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SausageConjecture.html

Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#14

Post by sosborn »

pinewurst wrote: post #13

Kenji is not only an excellent writer, but his recipes are terrific too (eating his pressure cooker mushroom risotto as I'm typing this).

I've tried many recipes from that site and they have all been spectacular. The best part is how in-depth they go into why the recipes work.

Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#16

Post by gomox »

If you have any beyond-superficial interest in food, Serious Eats columns by Lopez-Alt are a guaranteed treat.

A personal favorite is the article on getting perfect french fries in McDonalds style, including managing to get a bag of still-frozen fries for in-depth analysis. A true food hack.

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-h...

Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#17

Post by tomkinstinch »

gomox wrote: post #16

If you have any beyond-superficial interest in food, Serious Eats columns by Lopez-Alt are a guaranteed treat. A personal favorite is the article on getting perfect french fries in McDonalds style, including managing to get a bag of still-frozen fries for in-depth analysis. A true food hack. http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-h...

Kenji's (cook)book, The Food Lab, is also great, though it doesn't include everything he has on the blog.

It's also inexpensive enough to make a great random gift for foodie friends, despite being a hefty hardcover:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393081087

If you like his stuff, you might also enjoy the Cooking Issues podcast, particularly the earlier episodes.

It's a bantercast mixed with food science, cooking call-ins, and random interviews with culinary cognoscenti. The host is the energetic and interesting Dave Arnold, who recently won a James Beard award for his book on cocktails, and who used to teach food technology at the French Culinary Institute in NYC (now the ICC). It's my favorite podcast of the year.

http://heritageradionetwork.org/series/cooking-issues/

Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#19

Post by tomkinstinch »

sosborn wrote: post #14
pinewurst wrote: post #13

Kenji is not only an excellent writer, but his recipes are terrific too (eating his pressure cooker mushroom risotto as I'm typing this).

I've tried many recipes from that site and they have all been spectacular. The best part is how in-depth they go into why the recipes work.

Agreed. On great example is the (no doubt delicious) exploration that led to his chocolate chip cookie recipe.

(Explanation:) http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-...

(Recipe:) http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/12/the-food-lab-best...

Re: The Food Lab: Why Does Pepperoni Curl?

#20

Post by jeffwass »

pinewurst wrote: post #13

Kenji is not only an excellent writer, but his recipes are terrific too (eating his pressure cooker mushroom risotto as I'm typing this).

It's worth reading the article for the third paragraph alone :

There are times when I'll head into a bog-standard New York slice joint, see those pre-cooked squares with their flat disks of pepperoni, watch some poor sap order them, and think to myself: Ah, you've fallen victim to one of the two classic blunders, the most famous of which is "never question your pizza toppings in Asia," but only slightly less well known is this: "Never order a Sicilian when you spy flat-laying pepperoni on the line."

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