What Would French Fries Taste Like If You Made Them On Jupiter?

sciencehabit writes "Hoping that studying deep frying in different gravitational conditions will help them improve space food for future astronauts, scientists with the European Space Agency chopped potatoes into thin sticks and deep fried them in extra-virgin olive oil, one side at a time, in a spinning centrifuge that created conditions of up to nine times Earth's gravity, akin to that seen on Jupiter. Higher gravity levels significantly increased the heat transfer between the hot oil and the potato, shortening frying time and resulting in thick, crispy crusts, the team reports. In fact, the scientists may have discovered the ideal gravitational condition for creating crunchy fries: The crust reached its maximum thickness when the potato was fried at three times Earth's gravity; any further increase in gravity levels did not improve the fries' crispiness."

Comments

Ig Nobel Prize?

[bunyip]

Surely this research is a leading candidate!

Re:So, next piece of equipment for molecular gastr

[narcc]

What could go wrong?

I suspect that we'll read about more than one actualized possibility over the next few weeks.

Re:So, next piece of equipment for molecular gastr

[roc97007]

Whirling hot oil around at high speed, in a kitchen.

What could go wrong?

But you know, the same people who deep fry turkeys would try this.

Another variable to consider

[techno-vampire]

Deep frying, of course, is quite literally boiling in oil. As the boiling point is dependent on the pressure, they might want to consider putting the fryer in a pressure vessel that can handle several atmospheres. (No, I don't think a broaster is built for that.) Of course, that may well take the boiling point above the smoke point, so you may want to fill the container with nitrogen or possibly carbon dioxide.

Harumph.

[ApplePy]

Fat lot of good it does if you can't *grow* potatoes in 9x Earth gravity.

If they can grow potatoes in their centrifuge... then we have a useful study. :)