Follow-ups: Pasta

[jack]

* I did some more brief cooking experiments. Coating raw spaghetti in oil or pesto didn't seem to make any difference.

* Any spaghetti can be brought into the mouth with a lip-over-lip and tongue action. Cooked spaghetti can be brought into the mouth keeping the mouth, cheeks, tongue and lips entirely stationary but pursed, and sucking. (It's quite distinctive, it goes slitherslitherfast and then the end waves forlornly and then smack.)

* But even dipped in oil, cooked spaghetti didn't seem to be sucked in. However, this is far from conclusive -- there's nothing to say the coating is enough to make the friction of the raw and cooked spaghetti strands the same. Or, for instance, perhaps raw spaghetti has a rough surface you can't make a good seal on.

* If anyone wants to settle this, the open questions are still:

1. An air-pressure explanation of why sucking a floppy object would work. (Discussion still going on in the first post, Lisa had thoughts I've yet to respond to.)
2. Are we agreed you can suck cooked spaghetti solely by air pressure, without any pushing from the lips and tongue?
3. Is the matter of not sucking raw spaghetti its friction, or its compressibility or what? This ought to be obvious, I'm sure, but I don't feel concluded yet.

Comments

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

But even dipped in oil, cooked spaghetti didn't seem to be sucked in

do you mean raw?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

Good, good. The paragraph seemed to make more sense that way but I was worrying I was missing some subtlety or something.

[d37373.livejournal.com]

1) I *think* I understand it, but I seem to have failed to explain it by words in the last post. I'm pretty sure I could prove it using diagrams, but that would devolve into mathematics which never seems like a satisfactory proof for something that I can hold in my head and push and pull at. However helping other people to do the pushing-and-pulling and force propagation in their head is something I find much easier in person. If someone else ace come up with a decent explanation, I'd be grateful.

2) I believe that a) there is no mechanical lip or tongue motion needed; and b) the mechanism by which the pressure differential moves the spaghetti is still under discussion.

3) I have opinions but I am not confident enough about them to justify any particular one. Oh, and you missed change of shape (or more relevantly cross-sectional area and circumference, of which area increases faster, lending support to the pure pressure argument).

4) I really need to buy some spaghetti. Fusilli is not quite the same.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I really need to buy some spaghetti. Fusilli is not quite the same.

That's very lyrical :)

Anyway, that all sounds about right. Feel free to muse, or muse with maths, if you like. If you get a maths argument, I can hopefully validate it and maybe turn it into english -- I can do that some of the time, and would be grateful for any explanation if there's a chance it's right and I find it convincing :)

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

I really need to buy some spaghetti. Fusilli is not quite the same.

No, but if you got sufficiently elongated Fusilli then you might be able to get it to revolve as you sucked.

[d37373.livejournal.com]

I have built small mechanical devices before, using fusilli as a worm gear. What is that, PastaPunk? SteamedPunk?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

ROFL. That's priceless.

Alas, I suspect you're joking, but knowing my friends I can't tell for sure -- HAVE you build small mechanical pasta devices? :)

[d37373.livejournal.com]

I've arranged raw pasta such that I spin the Fusilli and spaghetti moves along then falls of the plate. Some Fusilli can be used as an Archimedes Screw as well, although not for thick sauces.

Penne is disappointing because it looks like the perfect gear, but the ridges are not tall enough.

[mangoman.livejournal.com]

Ah, bless.

Consider the first 5mm protruding from your mouth, a cylinder, roughly. There is a pressure differential acting upon it, lower pressure on the end that's going into your mouth, because you're sucking. This results in a force driving the cylinder inwards. It moves inwards. The remaining 30cm of spaghetti follows it, because it's connected.

[mangoman.livejournal.com]

... 2: yes, of course, obviously, unless you've had a stroke.
... 3: friction. If the spaghetti is "trafilati al bronzo", i.e. has been extruded through a (slightly rough) bronze die, it'll be harder to suck than the cheaper sort.