SC -Lye from ashes

[marilyn traber]

> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 23:21:11 EST
> From: Gerekr at aol.com
> Subject: Re:  SC - Who says kitchen burns are OOP?
> 
> On 2/25/98 1:48 PM you wrote:

<snip>

> >Solutions generally boil at a hotter temperature than plain water...I
> >had a lovely experience with boiling milk with sugar in it. Suffice it
> >to say if we ever meet I'll show you my scar...
> ...
> >
> >Adamantius
> 
> Cold water is not a universal remedy, however.  My husband recalls the 
> time his mother splashed fluid (molten) caramel on her hand and stuck it 
> under the cold water tap--- it formed a crust on the outside but 
> continued to cook her hand underneath!

That's bad, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the cause of the
burn was the caramel, not the cold water. Doing nothing would have been
worse: it's just unfortunate that there doesn't seem to be any better
way to remove something like that. Maybe warm water would have removed a
small fraction of the caramel before solidifying it, but either type of
water decreases the overall temperature of the combined mass of sugar
and hand, and decreases the depth of the burn. 

What cooks do is, more or less by definition, potentially dangerous,
what with the proliferation of heat and knives, etc., in their milieu.
It's almost impossible to eliminate the dangers, and while we can
decrease the likelihood of accidents, some of the best solutions we have
are still less effective than others...
> 
> What other general classes of things besides candies might do this "forms 
> surface crust when cooled, continues to cook underneath" reaction?

Hmmm. Viscous solutions/suspensions which soldify as they cool. Can't
think of anything offhand which wouldn't involve sugar, unless it was
something made with hot oil. Maybe one of those Cajun red or brown roux?
Or roux in general? It doesn't form as tough a crust as caramel, etc.,
but it doesn't exactly rinse off, either, being an oil-based, thick goo.

Adamantius
troy at asan.com
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