There. Fixed that for you.
HP Sauce is a popular condiment in the UK and Canada, though now made by Heinz (yes, that Heinz) in the Netherlands.
It says you can use it on pretty much anything– not sure that my printer will taste that much better with sauce on it, though.
The basic picture of the atom that many of us grew up with– that of little electrons orbiting the nucleus like so many planets orbiting the sun –turns out to be a little misleading. Reality is somewhat more complicated: a matter of wave functions, spherical harmonics, and ultimately probability clouds.
The chart above shows the appearance of a single hydrogen atom in a few of its lowest excited states.
In each of those states, the electron is found in a different orbital, some of which have unfamiliar shapes. But even the term “shape” is a little funny for something that you can’t hold in your hand. These are actually probability density plots, which show the likelihood of observing the electron in any one position at a given time– and more correctly, 2D projections of 3D probability densities.
So even the humble hydrogen atom can be a bit complex. Fortunately, we have advanced technology that can help us cut though the quantum mechanical haze: Cookies!
These are atomic spritz cookies, made by taking a fairly common cookie press and outfitting it with custom plates.
It’s not quite a trivial process, but the end result is pretty neat: you get to eat the atomic orbitals. Continue reading
Sichuan peppercorns, oh yeah! Raven of Made with Molecules after eating them wrote, “There’s a war in my mouth.” They create a riot of numbing and tingling sensations, particularly if you can get relatively fresh ones (i.e. not stale from sitting around in a Whole Foods bulk bin). Raven links to an abstract about the particular anesthetic-sensitive potassium channels inhibited by hydroxy-alpha-sanshool, one of the components of sichuan peppercorns that make them so exciting.
Science aside, we recently found some in a local asian grocery store, and were particularly struck by the packaging. American packaging often has annoying disclaimers about how contents are packed by weight and may have settled. These peppercorns were not only weighed, but the precision of the scale is indicated! If only all packaging was so straightforward. I was going to complain that the package doesn’t say what kind of peppercorns were inside (sichuan peppercorns are not related to other peppercorns) but then realized that the Chinese characters are specific to these “flower peppers” even if the English words are more general. In any case, the reddish husks are recognizable through the bag.
For years, we’ve enjoyed eating out at South Indian restaurants– they often have exceptionally interesting food. They are almost invariably vegetarian, so it is generally safe– even for non-carnivores –to order anything off of the menu.
But here’s the rub: the menus tend to be terse. Many of them have only a list of items, without description at all (Tirupathi Bhimas has an excellent example). It’s not clear if this is because they don’t expect “outsiders” to want this kind of food, or perhaps some other reason, but restaurants with clear descriptions of the menu items are the exception, not the rule.
Moreover, the waiters aren’t always trained to give explanations to non-Indians. If you ask what the difference between a dosa and a rava dosa is, you might hear that rava dosas are crispier. But your waiter may not know that rava means wheat or be able explain that in a rava dosa semolina replaces the rice flour. And that won’t help you if you don’t already know that a dosa is a large crispy crepe made with a fermented batter of rice flour and ground lentils. The semolina in a rava dosa does make it crispier, and a little thicker than a regular dosa. It also takes a little longer to cook, so you can expect it to come out of the kitchen a bit later than a regular dosa.
That little bit of trivia may stick in your mind for a short while, but will you remember it the next time you are at the restaurant? (Will we?) And what if you can’t remember what uthappam is? Some restaurants include more information on their website than they do on their printed menu (Saravanaa Bhavan [pdf] and Udupi Palace are good examples) but it would be a hassle and require planning to print out their online menu to take with you.
So you need a decoder ring! Or at least a wallet card. With a little help from Wikipedia (check out their page on curry!) and the glossary in my copy of 1000 Indian Recipes, we’ve put together a South Indian Restaurant Menu Decoder Wallet Card (800 kB PDF) for your enjoyment, education, and dining pleasure. You can print it out– single sided so no hassle –and it compresses to standard business card size: 3.5″ x 2″. You can also not print it out, and just view it on your iPhone. (And if you’ve never been to a South Indian place, isn’t this a good time to try one?)
A note on spelling and vocabulary: India is big. Many ingredients and dishes have different names in different regions, languages and dialects. Spellings vary a lot. I have used some of the more common variants, and tried to use multiple versions where the variance seems significant to me. I used versions that I have seen on menus in my area. I have not included all of them. If it sounds similar, it probably is.
A note on my definitions: I tried to include enough information to be useful, not so much as to be tediously accurate. My translations are gleaned from lots of sources, including my own experience and experimentation. Space considerations for the wallet card have led to some compromise on absolute accuracy. But I’m not Indian or I wouldn’t be writing this, so if you see something that’s blatantly wrong, please let me know.
We’d love to see wallet decoder cards for other kinds of restaurants, so let us know if you make one! Korean? Pakistani? Where else do we need one?
In some ways, we really like candy message hearts. They make good ammo, you can stamp them with your own messages, they make halfway decent sidewalk chalk, and they do bizarre things if you cook them.
On the other hand, you may or may not like the way that these things taste. (To us, many years ago, they compared very favorably to the other varieties of sidewalk chalk that we had tried.) In either case there is certainly some room for culinary alternatives.
Read on and learn how to make your own highly edible custom cookie message hearts.
