On the curvature of lobes
Bought fresh ginger yesterday. I do this quite often but I still find myself getting stuck in a state of inertia, looking at the tray of ginger roots and trying to work out which piece will offer maximal ginger for minimal cutting and peeling. Obviously there is an answer - there is one piece of ginger less knobbly than the others. But no amount of scrutiny or groping seems sufficient to divine which.
Presumably it would be possible to write down a topological formula for the knobbliness of ginger, the result of which would be a knobbliness quotient accounting for the number and curvature of lobes and incidence of fjords or other deformities relative to the length, breadth and volume of the root. No doubt the boffins are hard at work on it as I write this, away in the hallowed halls of their ivory towers of pure, throbbing brain.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 8:01 AM and filed under New stuff. Trackbacks are closed.
And when they’ve finished that perhaps they could work on the formula for finding the true diameter of a grapefruit… Sure, it sounds easy, but I can’t ever seem to cut one in anything even faintly resembling halves.
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 10:33 am | PermalinkSurely a pair of calipers would suffice in determining the diameter of all but the most irregular grapefruit?
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 11:03 am | PermalinkWhat every well stocked kitchen should have - a pair of callipers. Actually I think I must be buying very irregular grapefruit…
Posted on 31-Aug-06 at 1:44 am | PermalinkIt’s no use getting your knickers in a twist over its knobbliness or lack of, if the ginger in hand isn’t juicy.
Posted on 31-Aug-06 at 10:28 am | PermalinkThe strategy of least effort is to cut off all the nobbles and throw them away, then peel and use only the major shaft of the ginger root. This removes all concerns around choosing a conveniently shaped ginger root.
If you feel uneasy about wasting all the little nobbles you could always give them away to the less fortunate. Or alternatively I’m sure charity shops would welcome a regular influx of ginger nobbles to sell at 1p per piece to the more thrifty bargain hunters.
Posted on 01-Sep-06 at 1:20 pm | Permalinkrs: I must be blessed, because I’ve never had a problem with the juiciness of my ginger.
thw: the flaw in your strategy lies in determining the “nobbles” from the “major shaft”. Jut five minutes ago I sliced a root with no clearly discernible “major shaft” at all - by your logic, I would have discarded the entire root as “nobbles”.
Posted on 01-Sep-06 at 6:52 pm | Permalink