Key Points
Filmmaker explores scientific marvel of pressure cooking technology
High-pressure steam enables faster, energy-efficient cooking
Invention traces back to 17th-century steam digester
Sircar shares passionate engineering appreciation
On Thursday, the filmmaker took to his Instagram, and shared a video capturing a pressure cooker kept over a burner. The medium close-up was captured from different angles as the pressure cooker’s whistle kept twirling due to the pressure.
He wrote in the caption, “ My love for the pressure cooker knows no bounds. For me, one of the greatest inventions of modern science is the ‘pressure cooker’. I am obsessed with it”.
A pressure cooker makes the use of high pressure steam and water or a water-based liquid to cook the food.
The high pressure limits boiling and creates higher temperatures not possible at lower pressures, allowing food to be cooked faster than at normal pressure. The steam digester, which was invented in the seventeenth century by the physicist Denis Papin, was the prototype for the pressure cooker.
It works by expelling air from the vessel and trapping steam produced from the boiling liquid. This is used to raise the internal pressure up to one atmosphere above ambient and gives higher cooking temperatures between 100– 121 °C. Together with high thermal heat transfer from steam it permits cooking in between a half and a quarter the time of conventional boiling as well as saving considerable energy.
Earlier, Shoojit had said that his community of Bengalis are the most talkative. The filmmaker took to his Instagram recently, and shared a note in which he mulled over the subject of the most talkative community.
He wrote, “While Indians are generally known for their love of conversation, it's hard to pinpoint a single region as the most talkative. But if I had to take a guess, I'd say Bengalis might just take the cake! After all, "adda" (friendly chats) are an integral part of Bengali culture!.What do you think? Do you agree? #Talkative Indians #BengaliAdda #IndianCulture”.
