It doesn’t take a Michelin star to know how to boil pasta. Doing so is regarded as one of the most basic skills in the kitchen, with even the most useless of cooks being hard-pressed to mess it up. Cooking pasta involves filling a saucepan with water, putting on the lid, and bringing it to a boil over high heat before adding in salt and the pasta itself. At least that’s what we thought…
An Italian theoretical physicist is now bringing into question everything we knew about the simple process.
Giorgio Parisi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics two years ago for his discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems. As such, he enjoys applying science when it comes to cooking.
According to Parisi, we should be turning off the heat once we have added the pasta into the boiling water. Doing so reportedly saves at least eight minutes of energy consumption, as well as reduces each individual’s carbon emissions by around 13.3kg annually.
Although the suggestion benefits the planet, Parisi’s method has caused outrage in the food industry.
Chefs have declared that the physicist’s method will simply result in a pot of rubbery noodles, with some calling it “a disaster”.
“Let’s leave cooking to chefs while physicists do experiments in their lab,” stated chef Luigi Pomata.
