When MechE Grad Students Cook Turkey... Revised Text Edition

[danielwang]

Daniel Wang – www.mechacker.com – wangd1@asme.org
When MechE Grad Students Cook Turkey

MechE:
Hello all, and welcome to my workshop on cooking turkeys.
Meat treatment has its origins thousands of years ago as a method used initially to sterilize food for consumption. When it was discovered that the processing increased the aesthetic qualities of the food, treatment processes were readily accepted by the public and the field of cooking was created.
Today, meat treatment is practiced in almost every household nationwide. More than just a culinary art, meat treatment is now considered a materials science on par with pharmacology and plastics design.
In this symposium, I will be demonstrating the various methods used to process and heat-treat turkeys. A copy of the PowerPoint is in the proceedings portfolio.
Translator:
Hi, welcome to my big plenary lecture. Cooking began thousands of years ago to make food cleaner and taste better. Today, everybody does it, but I’m going to make it more complicated than it is. Diagrams and flowcharts are in your manila folder.

MechE:
The finished product will be sampled at the Geek Reception after the plenary lecture.
Translator:
Oh no. Um, we’re going to have to eat the turkey, so go ahead and read the MSDS in the folder. NO COMPLAINING.

MechE:
To begin, it is of utmost importance that the initial stock and raw materials are appropriate for our client. As you see on the Bill of Materials, we have selected a half kilogram of medium-density, E-grade Butterball turkey, available from a retail grocer. As this product has been shipped in a cryogenic storage state, we must slowly restore the stock to maximum 30 Celsius, delta 6 Celsius per minute, over a frame of 5 minutes with a fluid bath. To avoid contamination, do not remove the shielding material.
Translator:
To start, you have to get enough meat for the whole family. As you see on the supplies list, we have a young Butterball turkey, available at Krogers or Safeway. Since it’s frozen now, you must thaw this out to room temperature. Stick it in a bowl of lukewarm water WITHOUT removing the plastic wrap. Make sure you take only around 5 minutes to do this.

MechE:
Once the stock is restored, it is now in a condition suitable for diffusion. Remove the shielding material and section the insides as appropriate. If you wish to treat the stock with any conditioning or flavoring agents, you may saturate the stock by agitating it in a fluid solution/suspension of water and required agent. To increase membrane saturation rates, I have employed several methods including ionized migration and pressure reverse-osmosis. Please note, you may only add buffering material after the wash has been completed.
Translator:
Once the turkey is thawed, clean it and remove the insides if needed. You can marinate or tenderize it by removing the wrap and sticking it in a bowl with the marinade. Our professor here is using hydraulic pressure, but you can just inject the sauce in. Don’t add stuffing until you’re done.

MechE:
As you can from Figure 1, Diagram 1 in Appendix A of your proceedings, most types of turkey are heterogeneous and contain multiple densities, due in part to its organic nature. Because of the density discontinuity, zone treatment is required.
Translator:
There is white and dark turkey, it’s not bogus. Since dark turkey is denser, it needs to be treated differently.

MechE:
Keeping our application in mind, our ideal structure should have a uniform tensile resistance and equivalent gamma structure. Similar to steel treatment, however, exposure time and rate of change are important factors in the nucleation process; however, they vary based on density and class of the meat. To selectively anneal the stock, we employ a method discovered by Japanese bladesmiths.
<Removes a large roll of aluminum foil>
A layer of aluminum will provide material resistance to heat migrating from the turkey.
Translator:
Keeping in mind we are going to eat this; we want to make sure this is evenly cooked and firm. However, the times we cook the white and dark turkey differ, so we’re going to wrap some parts with Reynold’s Wrap.

MechE:
Apparently, the surface has not been doped properly. We will now disperse sugar crystals upon the surface of the product to increase its aesthetic refraction qualities.
Translator:
It seems like the turkey’s not glossed. We’ll just sprinkle regular sugar on top to make it look more golden-brown when we’re done.

MechE:
Earlier this morning, I had the radiology department scan the stock for density, as you see above in Figure 2, Appendix A. I’ve programmed an algorithm into the heating device, as you see in Chart 1, Figure 3. The projected chronological thermal transformations should follow Figure 1, Appendix B.
Translator:
We had Radiology scan the turkey’s anatomy so Mr. Gnyrd could find out where to apply the heat.

MechE:
To monitor the process, I have installed infrared and radiological temperature and structure sensors inside the meat and the heating container. As you can see, the cells of the membrane are reorganizing through spinodal decomposition, causing a larger grain size.
Translator:
Ignore the Frankenstein probes he’s put on the turkey, please. The laser stuff on the food is nothing sci-fi, just oven thermometers.

MechE:
The video you are seeing on the screen above is the allotropic transformation of the product from fine pearlitic turkey to a more redundant, retentive gamma martensite.
Translator:
The stuff on the screen is a really, really, really close up view of the roasting process.
Doesn’t it smell good?

MechE:
As the product completes the heat-treatment process, its diffraction index and combined refraction color should decrease from 42.2 angstroms, 700nm to around 16.5 angstroms, 400nm. Attempt for a range of 350 to 450, if the refraction intensity decreases greater than 15 per centum you have exceeded the target parameters.
Translator:
As the turkey finished cooking, it should nice and glossy, and change from a white color to golden brown. If it starts getting too dark, then you burned it and need to stop now.

MechE:
When you have reached the target inflection point, remove the product from the heating device and quench according to the target algorithm. As it is suitable for this product to slowly diffuse the heat, I have simply placed it on heat sinks. However, with more sensitive stock such as steaks, you may want to employ methods such as lowering environment temperature or modifying your treatment rates.
Translator:
You can let this turkey air cool, but since steaks can cook off of the grill, you might want to chill them. Or, not cook them so much anyways.

MechE:
Thank you for attending this session; if anyone has any questions I will take them now.
Translator:
LUNCH!

[fyrtenheimer]

THIS IS UBER FUCKEN INTERESTING.