French fries in space: Astronauts puff up menu as ESA learns to fry food

The first fry in space has been made by researchers ofthe European Space Agency (ESA). A study was recently carried out in microgravity at a height of 2,000 feet to see whether potatoes canbe cooked to an edible level. Despite the fact that buoyancy—the phenomenon that causes oil bubbles to exit a potato's surface—is known to not occur in space due to the absence of gravity, ESA teams were nonetheless able to cook fries in a laboratory setting.

The scientists clarified that without buoyancy, the bubbles wouldn't be drawn upward and adhere to the surface of the potato. As a result, the potato would be undercooked and "undesirable," and a film of steam would form around it.

How was this achieved?

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The fried space food is being made as part of a study to examine how culinary methods like frying are affected by microgravity. ESA carried out two flying campaigns using a plane that flew in arcs to provide fleeting experiences of weightlessness for this study. The process through which the aircraft ascends from a height of at least 20,000 feet is known as "parabolic flight".It ascends to a specific altitude and then plummets back to the starting point, providing 22 seconds of weightlessness.

During the time that potatoes were being cooked in microgravity, a high-speed, high-resolution camera captured the dynamics of the bubbles, including their growth rate, size, distribution, and escape velocity from the potato's surface. The internal potato temperatures and the oil's boiling point were also measured.

"It is seen that even in the absence of buoyancy i.e., during parabolas, vapour bubbles still detach and depart from the surface of potato permitting hot oil to maintain contact with the potato surface and leading eventually to a fried product."

"The results of the present study provide primary experimental evidence that frying can occur in space," the paper further read.

Once this technology is completely perfected, astronauts will continue to eat like people on Earth do and will eat fried foods as a mainstay. Currently, astronauts can spend up to six months or even a year on the International Space Station (ISS), which is 400 kilometres above the Earth. They would have more alternatives and better food security when they set out on lengthy trips to the Moon and Mars if cooking skills had advanced.

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