WOULD YOU LIKE TO WEAR CURRY SMELL AS AFTERSHAVE OR COLOGNE ?
Dr Tilak Fernando
If you happen to live in a Western country where house designs do not allow much ventilation like in Sri Lanka but have to depend on extractor fans while cooking in the kitchen to avoid curry smells adhering to your best suit, if hanged in an open space, it would be like wearing an ‘Asian aftershave’ on your clothes! Western kitchens are full of steam. During cooking ‘ the smell’ spreads all over cook’s hair, hands, face and clothes and deposits on any cold surface says, Dr. Hector Perera, a qualified Chemist with a PhD in chemistry, based in London.
According to Dr Perera, all essential oils of low boiling points escape with steam and condense on any cold surface such as clothes, hands, and hair or on the walls and kitchen cupboards. He says he has come out with a bright idea how to minimise this cooking aroma and to avoid steam and all the volatile gases depositing on you and your clothes in food preparation.
What is this ‘smell’? He defines it as volatile gases of these food ingredients and spices which are supposed to be on the food and not on your skin, face, hands and on clothes! The aroma of onions, garlic, cinnamon, lemon grass, ginger, coriander leaves and volatile oils from other spices such as chilli powder, pepper etc, to name a few, have very low boiling points than water. These tend to deposit on cold surfaces such as on peoples’ face, hands, clothes and hair and when they go out of their houses sometimes wearing curry smells like after shave or cologne, which make eyes to roll and eye brows to rise in public transport during travel, he says.
Dr. Hector Perera states that cooking is a very scientific exercise which is easy and full of fun if done properly. Referring to so many professional chefs who come on British television, he says he cannot remember any of them talk about chemical and physical changes as they cook. “They do not pay attention to the boiling points or volatility of these gases in the food; they just brag about their cooking with fire on full blast; they love to show their saucepans catching fire, may be with the notion that higher the fire, greater the audience will be, ” he adds flavour to his own theory.
. Dr. Perera’s scientific manner or approach to teach cooking is different and more modern, practical and easy to apply on day to day life by anybody. He is of the opinion this kind of education should start from school age. “What is the point in learning science in schools, if their acquired knowledge is not going to be utilised when they leave school, he questions. His arguments being all governments are pumping millions of pounds for science education with new and modern science laboratories, new schools, colleges and introduce new technology, but are the kids making the real use of all those facilities”?
Dr Perera’s method seems to be unique, energy saving [gas and electricity], very scientific and easy to learn to save gas and electricity. Gas being a fossil fuel, he says, tends to run out soon, and if one is not careful with how one uses it, then it will mean one having to pay extra money on gas, which is not a pet subject during these days, he says, where price of energy keeps on skyrocketing on a daily basis
“May be gas and electricity suppliers won’t be very keen on my technique because I show how to use less energy” he argues. But how does he do it?
.Before cooking, he says, one has to choose the right cooking utensil and not any receptacle. He warns against using aluminium vessels for real cooking, other than for just boiling, because aluminium dissolves. His advice about aluminium is only good to be used as food containers but not as cooking vessels as this metal can damage brain cells. “I have seen people cook meat and fish curry in these aluminium vessels and are they not aware of the fact that the ingredients like vinegar, tamarind, lime and goraka [garcinia Indica] can dissolve aluminium. What happens then is that these acids begin to attack aluminium dissolve with meat which in turn goes to the food in the utensil poisoning the cooked food! He advises that during cooking lots of chemical changes are taking place and one needs to be mindful about it.
To substantiate his theory he goes on to say that, “When an apple fell on the head of that little boy he discovered gravity. Electricity was first discovered by an Englishman who had no qualification other than a fair knowledge of Maths and English. He left school at the age of 14 and worked as an errand boy to a bookbinder but Sir Humphrey Davy gave him a job in the lab when he pleaded to be a lab boy. Then only he discovered electricity and became the Director of that institute that was no more than 300 years ago”.
Did “Isaac Newton revealed his own idea, the gravitational pull discovery to his neighbours or friendsfirst,before passed on to scientists?” Haber found how to make Ammonia that lead to make gunpowder and fertiliser. He was awarded over £100,000 in late 1930s for his discovery. Nobel found how make dynamite to blast off bridges and then set up a Nobel Prize for peace. Ziegler invented the polythene bag, which received a Nobel price. I wonder what the super markets would do these days without these carrier bags. And the twenty million dollar question, why not I get an opportunity to show the nation or the world about my technique”? He laments.
The whole world today is worried about the escalating energy price increases. Dr. Perera vows that he will be able to show how to save money by using minimum gas or electricity, to save approximately 75% energy and still cook in a scientific manner. He is impatiently waiting for a commercial institution or a government to beckon him to show his new theory, and is quite confident that his ‘secretive technique’ will help save millions of national wealth which is spent on gas and electricity by consumers today the world over.
Dr. Hector Perera is not a chef but a qualified Chemist, a science aficionado and the author of a GCSE (O) and (A-Level) Chemistry Model Q & A books and CDs. He could be contacted on by e-mail: chemistry4u@tiscali.co.uk. He got two web sites dedicated to educate GCSE Science and AS/A2 Level Chemistry.