The Mitr

Cooking as therapeutic exercise

We generally associate cooking with its product – the edible food it produce. But here I would like to reflect on the process of cooking. For me, personally, cooking is a stress relieving exercise. The final product is one of the components not the only one. What makes great food great is not only the product, but the process – how well the cook has balanced the flavours, the textures and aromas. And this is something that the cook savours. For a good cook the best satisfaction comes from the orgasmic faces that eating the food brings out….
So let us look at what are various steps in the process.

Deciding what to cook?

This can be a major challenge sometimes, especially when you have abundant ingredients at your disposal. But if you have limited ingredients the kind of food that you can cook is obviously limited. You cannot make a chicken-noodle soup if you don’t have chicken and noodles, rest of the ingredients are optional in way.

chicken noodle soup

Gathering the ingredients

This I think is one of the feel good parts for me. Getting all the ingredients ready, washing and cleaning them. This also creates a sense of what will be the output. One can visualise the metamorphosis of the raw elements to something well cooked – how their colour, flavour and texture will change during the cooking. When you look at cooking as a process, a lot of imagination has to be therein you as a cook

The Spices and flavours

The natural flavours in the food are sometimes too bland or we need to temper them to suit our palate. Different cuisines uses different spices and herbs to make the food relishable. Lot of powders or different spices are used, while in some cases whole spices are used. The ginger garlic paste is another basic ingredient in many cuisines. And finally salt. Almost no dishes are made without salt. Put too little or none it becomes bland or tasteless, put a bit too much and it becomes salty!
The plate below has onion cut very finely, coriander cut, ginger garlic thick paste, black pepper powder, salt, paprika, chilly powder, coriander powder, and cumin powder.

spice set
spice set

The garam masala is another quintessential routine for much of indian cooking.You can make one yourself easily.

garam masala

Pepper and chillies of various kinds are used to add fire to the food. Choose yours wisely.

cjill
chillies

Fresh or dried herbs are a also used to give the required zest. Basil is the best!

basil
basil

The Cutting Board

I prefer  wooden cutting board. It is easy on the knives and it feels good to cut on it.
Mincing an onion in little pieces with a knofe which obeys and performs with movement of your hands is one of best experiences.

onion and garlic cut

Though onion can be cut in several ways, depending on what you are trying to make it taste like…

red onion cut

A baby cabbage is one of the most wonderful things to cut. To see the internal structure of the cabbage and you know it is going to be a nice dish..

cabbage cut

Halving mushrooms or slicing them is therapeutic in itself. You feel victorious after halving a packet of them. You feel something has been achieved for the day.

mushroom cut
cut carrot onion and sun dried tomatoes
cut carrot onion and sun dried tomatoes

The cutting tools – the knives  – are a separate topic in themselves and deserve their own separate post.. But as they say a good chef will not trade the knives with (think of something which rhymes with knives)…

 

Setting the stage

Once the ingredients are ready, cleaned and cut, our next step begins. This is the preparation for. the final act of cooking itself. It may be mixing things, marinating them or mashing them up.

preparation of chicken marination
preparation of chicken marination
marinating chicken with curd and spices
marinating chicken with curd and spices
putting the chicken on the spikes and put on fire test

 

and see the marinated raw chicken metamorphise to chicken malai kabab

The Cooking Medium

Each dish has to be cooked in the media it is meant to be cooked with. Depending on the cuisine it can be groundnut oil, coconut oil, mustard oil, butter, olive oil, sesame oil, ghee or lard. Each medium will give its unique flavour and aroma to the food. And some dishes don’t taste the same or even taste awful when not cooked in the preferred media.
When you add the masala to the medium, the way it releases its colours and aromas is something that I admire. The aroma of onions getting cooked in pure ghee… yum.. or garlic getting cooked in olive oil…

The Cooking Vessel

Over last couple of years I have been introduced to cast iron vessels for cooking and I am not going back. I have already planned not to purchase any non-stick ones in the future. It is cast iron all the way now.

cast iron dutch oven cooking onion
cast iron
chicken cooking in a cast iron dutch oven on a braai

The Order of Things

When the medium is hot enough you start to add things. In the order, sometimes you change the order you get good result, or it is a fiasco. I think new dishes were discovered in this way. When you go outside the cookbook and try something new, many times it might be a failure, but at times you will be rewarded with great new dishes. Sometimes you jumble, sometimes you change order of things on the fly. Forgetfulness and innovation,
For example, you would want to make the flour ready for making roties or bread before you want to make them,

flour for making breads
flour for making breads
do we add herbs and spices first or later?
vegetable roast in the oven – do we add herbs and spices first or later?
do we add herbs and spices first or later?
vegetable roast in the over – do we add herbs and spices first or later?

The Aromas

You know you have a great dish incoming when the dish starts to release its aroma. You might not smell it if you are too close to a dish while cooking, they say you cannot see things if they are too large). So go to a different room, and come back you will know its a good dish cooking. A good aroma also creates a sense of mystery and longing for the dish, it stirs up appetites. When you are very hungry, think of hunger pangs when your conditioned body knows it is time to eat and you smell something cooking, its as if your basest desires get activated.

aroma from a chicken curry

Unfortunately our science of smell is not that well developed so I cannot make you experience the aromas – but use your imagination..

The Colours and texture

The colours in the food make it attractive. A dull coloured food will be not that attractive. That is reason we find multi-coloured salads so much attractive!

colourful salad – with texture and taste
colourful salad – with texture and taste
colourful salad – with texture and taste and hummus
tomato onion uttappa
tomato onion uttappa looks refreshing
so does two egg omelette!

The Presentation

As we approach the final stages of cooking the presentation of the food is the final frontier. No matter how well you have cooked it, if the food is not presented well, well it loses it’s charm, though it might be still edible..

biryani with raita and salad
biryani with raita and salad well not so well presented, but it was yummy I can tell you that
assorted sauteed vegetables
assorted sauteed vegetables
hummus, pita bread, couscous salad, pickles
couscous vegetable salad
ghee rice with dry fruits and caramelized onions
pork pandi curry aka coorg pork with naan and curd salad (raita)
pork pandi curry aka coorg pork with naan and curd salad (raita)
boiled eggs with paprika and fresh coriander

The Taste

The real satisfaction to a cook comes from the pleasure that other find in eating the food that has been cooked. It pays of all the effort that was put in process, while the product is something akin to the metaphorical tip of the iceberg..
mutton curry!

It is always joyful to cook for others than cooking alone for yourself. It helps you relax as you order the seemingly raw ingredients into a masterful recipe full of flavour, aroma and texture and taste. The sense of satisfaction and belonging you get when the notes of taste just hit right, and expressions of those who eat it change from ordinary to one of delight and satisfying smiles at the end of meal has no equal. Rightfully done cooking is the most therapeutic exercise for your troubled soul. To see the process of ingredients transforming from their raw state to various stages of cooking and finally climaxing into that feeling satiation is the most wholesome feeling that makes you feel special about yourself.   It is perhaps this reason that mothers while cooking the food want you to eat more and more…

 

 

The Mitr

State of Humanity in 2017 – A view from 1920

Following is an excerpt from Beyond the Planet Earth by the Russian scientist and science fiction author Konstantin Tsiolkovsky about the life in 2017, from approximately 100 years ago.

State of Humanity in 2017

What was our Earth like in the year 2017, in which our story is set?
On all Earth there was one beginning: congress, consisting of elective repre­sentatives from all states. It had existed already more than 70 years and resolved all questions concerning humanity. Wars were impossible. Misunderstandings between people were settled by peaceful means. Armies were very limited. Actually, these were armies of labor. Population, with happy enough conditions in the last one hundred years, was trebled. Trade, technology, art, and agriculture attained signif­icant success. Huge metallic dirigibles, lifting thousand of tons, communicated, transported goods conveniently and inexpensively.
Especially beneficial were the huge air ships, sending inexpensive loads, such as trees, coal, metals, and so forth downstream with the wind almost for nothing. Aircraft served for especially fast transfer of small number of passengers or pre­cious cargo; the most commonly used were airplanes for one or two persons.
Humanity marched peaceful on the path of progress. However, fast growth of population forced all thinking people and rulers concern.
Ideas regarding the possibility of technical conquest of use of world deserts were considered long ago, — still more than one hundred years ago. In 1903, one Russian thinker wrote a serious work on this matter and proved mathematically, on the basis of the scientific data of that time, the complete possibility of settle­ment of solar system. But these ideas were almost forgotten, and only our company of scientists revived them and partly carried them out.

Let us first talk about the technological changes he has predicted. He predicts that airships or dirigibles would be a major form of transport for cargo, while aircrafts are used for smaller cargo and passengers. Also, there is an indication in the last paragraph that some space travel has happened.
The political and social scene is something that is off the charts. Tsiolkovsky shows a lot of optimism in how humans are able to resolve their differences and bring forth peace and happiness in all. I think this is a reflection of the zeitgeist of the era. Lot of revolutionary changes were happening which resulted in progress in the fields in almost all fields. So it wouldn’t be a deviation to think that humans would also progress along the same lines and resolve their differences peacefully to live a prosperous and happy life.
You can read Beyond the Planet Earth here as a part the his collected works.

The Mitr

John Tukey on data based pictures and graphs

John Tukey‘s wisdom on importance and value of graphics and pictures in making sense of exploring data.

Consistent with this view, we believe, is a clear demand that pictures based on exploration of data should force their messages upon us. Pictures that emphasize what we already know — “security blankets” to reassure us — are frequently not worth the space they take. Pictures that have to be gone over with a reading glass to see the main point are wasteful of time and inadequate of effect. The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see. (p. vi emphasis in original)

John Tukey – Exploratory Data Analysis

The Mitr

Galileo’s Experiments on Accelerated Motion

A short account of Galileo’s description of his own experiment on accelerated motion — a short account of it, the apparatus he used and the results he got.
The first argument that Salviati proves is that in accelerated motion the change in velocity is in proportion to the time (𝑣 ∝ 𝑡) since the motion began, and not in proportion to the distance covered (𝑣 ∝ 𝑠) as is believed by Sargedo.

“But for one and the same body to fall eight feet and four feet in the same time is possible only in the case of instantaneous (discontinuous) motion; but observation shows us that the motion of a falling body occupies time, and less of it in covering a distance of four feet than of eight feet; therefore it is not true that its velocity increases in proportion to the space. (Salviati)

Also, he proves that the increase in proportion is not of simple doubling but larger. They agree upon a definition of uniformly accelerated motion,

“A motion is said to be equally or uniformly accelerated when, starting from rest, its momentum receives equal increments in equal times. (Sargedo)

To this definition Salviati adds an assumption about inclined planes, this assumption is that for a given body, the increase in speed while moving down the planes of difference inclinations is equal to the height of the plane. This also includes the case if the body is dropped vertically down, it will still gain the same speed at end of the fall as it would gain from rolling on the incline This assumption makes the final speed independent on the profile of the incline. For example, in the figure below, the body falling along𝐶 → 𝐵, 𝐶 → 𝐷 and 𝐶 → 𝐴 will attain the same final speed.

This result is also proved via a thought experiment (though it might be feasible to do this experiment) for a pendulum. The pendulum rises to the height it was released from and not more.
After stating this theorem, Galileo then suggests the experimental verification of the theorem. of The actual apparatus that Galileo uses is an wooden inclined slope of following dimensions: length 12 cubits (≈ 5.5 m, 1 cubit ≈ 45.7 cm), width half-cubit and three-finger breadths thick . In this plank of wood, he creates a very smooth groove which is about a finger thick. (What was the thickness of Galileo’s fingers?) The incline of this plank are changed by lifting one end. A bronze ball is rolled in this groove and time taken for descent is noted.

“We repeated this experiment more than once in order to measure the time with an accuracy such that the deviation between two observations never exceeded one- tenth of a pulse-beat.

Then Galileo performed variations in the experiment by letting the ball go different lengths (not full) of the incline and “found that the spaces traversed were to each other as the squares of the times, and this was true for all inclinations of the plane”. Each variation was repeated hundreds of times so as to rule out any errors. Also, the fact that for different inclines the times of descent were in noted and were in agreement with the predictions.
Since there were no second resolution clocks to measure time, Galileo devised a method to measure time using water. This was not new, water clocks were used earlier also.

The basic idea was to the measure the amount of water that was collected from the start of the motion to its end. The water thus collected was weighed on a good balance.This weight of water was used as a measure of the time. A sort of calibration without actually measuring the quantity itself: “the differences and ratios of these weights gave us the differences and ratios of the times”

Galileo used a long incline, so that he could measure the time of descent with device he had. If a shorted incline was used, it would have been difficult to measure the shorter interval of time with the resolution he had. Measuring the free fall directly was next to impossible with the technology he had. Thus the extrapolation to the free fall was made continuing the pattern that was observed for the “diluted” gravity.

“You present these recondite matters with too much evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner. For, in my opinion, people esteem more lightly that knowledge which they acquire with so little labor than that acquired through long and obscure discussion. (Sargedo)

 

Reference

Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

William Francis Magie A Source Book in Physics, New York, Harvard University Press 1935
The Mitr

Puneral

Pun is a play on words. Sometimes pun is fun. Sometimes it is risqué. Some times it has dirty meaning.  It is considered to be a sign of wit. A mastery of puns is admirable. Is the person who makes a pun called a punner? And sin of making bad puns called punnery?  It makes meaning not literal. It adds a layer of meaning to the words, which goes beyond the literal meaning. But why would anyone want that? If the author wants to convey some other meaning why not write that but go about it in a circuitous way? Not everyone can make sense of puns. Perhaps some puns are too clever for anyone to understand! Maybe all sentences are pun but they are beyond our cognitive capacities to understand them. Sometimes the pun goes unnoticed or sometimes it is feared that one might be construed when there is none.  Then people say “Pun intended”  or “Pun unintended?!” Intending a pun is easy but how does one not intend a pun? At what cognitive stage do humans start to understand and appreciate puns? Are puns present in all languages? But nonetheless there are bad puns and good puns and then there are dead puns. 
When puns are killed, the resultant ceremony in its memory is a puneral. So a puneral is a funeral for puns. Sometimes puns are so bad that it is like murdering them in broad daylight. What are some examples? But is daylight always broad? I should say narrow night light? Or in medium twilight? Is light always needed for murder? How about a no light murder? Would it be heavy then?

News about murdering raisins is in the current affairs section of the paper.

Is this a bad pun? Does it qualify for a puneral?
But anyways. Puneral is the word to describe that event which is the procession for mourning the abuse of puns. It is just me coining new terms with some meaning and/or just writing some nonsense. Earlier I had coined cigol. Go fetch the meaning.

A Puneral Procession? – Owl and Pussycat by Edward Lear

But how would such a procession would look like? Can we at all visualise a puneral? Or it is an abstracted out event coming from nowhere and going to nowhere? Of no fixed address they say. But does a pun have an address? Is a pun always addressed to someone? Can a pun be self-reliant and self-referential? What if a pun commits a suicide? Or it commits a harakiri because it is ashamed at the sheer cheesiness of itself? What do grammar nazis feel about punerals? What about astute english professors? Sorry didn’t Capitalise the “E” in english? Was it intentional non-capitalisation? Does everything have intent? Is every stance intentional? Or is there random blabbering? (some might say just like this post! Is this a self referential sentence?) What can be other meanings of puneral? PUNE Roadways And Logistics? Keep guessing. Or is it PUNE feRAL for feral things in Pune?
Well, who knows about such things?
 

The Mitr

Making the first letter decorative, large and capital in a text using LaTeX

In many of the old books we have the first letter as a large decorative capital. Many times very ornamental typefaces are used. Some examples

Petri Apiani Cosmographia, 1539

Johannes Hevelius Selenographia 1647

Johannes Hevelius  Machina celestis

1882

A Letter from Hevelius on observations of a comet, 1683

Sphaera c. 1230 by Sacro Bosco (Ed. published by Peter Apianus, 1526)

FROM GALILEO TO NUCLEAR AGE LEMON 1949

example of drop caps from old books

VISUAL ILLUSIONS LUCKIESH 1922

Another style that is often employed with the large capital letter is that the rest of the word, or the sentence is in small caps. Now small caps are distinct than the regular caps. They are capitals, but with the x-height of small letters. And small caps usually have slightly larger spacing between the words than the regular one.

RELATIVITY AND ITS ROOTS HOFFMAN 1983

The Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist McCormmach 1982

The Pleasure of Text Barthes 1975

Now, even in some of the modern books the same effect is used. So if you are looking for a way to achieve this effect using LaTex, then lettrine is the package you are looking for.

Drop caps

The name of this effect is drop caps. When I was searching for finding a solution for achieving this effect, the first block was that I didn’t know what it was called! After a bit of searching here and there I finally came to know about the name: drop caps. So if you are stuck as I was about what this large capital letter style is called, thence the descriptive and verbose title of post.
Now back to LaTeX implementation. lettering gives you several options for customising the drop caps. For the simplest case, we can use the default font of the document
\usepackage{lettrine}
 
\lettrine{W}{hile} overall the work is well informed, I did not like the (almost) condescending tone she uses when discussing anything “free”. 
\lettrine[lines=2,lhang=.1,loversize=0.1]{W}{hile} overall the work is well informed, I did not like the (almost) condescending tone she uses when discussing anything “free”. 
\lettrine{A}{nother} example is needed.
\lettrine[lines=1,lhang=1,loversize=0.5]{W}{hile} overall the work is well informed, I did not like the (almost) condescending tone she uses when discussing anything “free”. 
  \lettrine[lines=3,lhang=0.75,loversize=0.25]{F}{or} example, she (almost) claims only commercial fonts are well designed because
These examples produce the following output
 

Now we can also use fancy header fonts. Have a look at some of them here.

\newfontfamily\zallman[Scale=4]{ZallmanCaps}
\renewcommand*{\LettrineFont}{\zallman}


\newfontfamily\acorn[Scale=4.2]{AcornInitials}
\renewcommand*{\LettrineFont}{\acorn}

You will need to play with the parameters for different fonts to find a better fit for your document.
Now how to add colour?
\lettrine[lines=3]{\color{red}S}{tart} 
\vspace{30pt}
\lettrine{\color{green}W}{hile} overall the work is well informed, I did not like the (almost) condescending tone she uses when discussing anything “free”. 
\lettrine[lines=2,lhang=.1,loversize=0.1]{\color{blue}W}{hile} overall the work is well informed, I did not like the (almost) condescending tone she uses when discussing anything “free”.

Happy typesetting!

The Mitr

A complex systems approach to biology – a review of How Leopard Changed its Spots by Brian Goodwin

How the Leopard Changed it Spots by Brian Goodwin talks about a different approach to biology. After the genetic and molecular biology revolution 1950s onwards, increasingly the organism has been shifted out of focus in biology. Instead genes and their effect, genocentrism or neo-Darwninism, have taken the central stage. Everything in biology is seen as an “action” of genes in addition to natural selection. This translates to reductionism, everything is reduced to genes which are considered as the most fundamental units of life. This is the dominant approach in biology for some decades now. The terms such as “selfish gene” basically highlight this point. Such an approach sidelines the organism as a whole and its environment and highlights the genes alone. Good draws analogy of “word” of god seen as the final one in scriptures to the code alphabet in the genes, as if their actions and results are inevitable and immutable.
Goodwin in his work argues against such an approach using a complex systems perspective. In the process he also critiques what is an acceptable “explanation” in biology vis-a-vis other sciences. The explanation in biology typically is a historical one, in which features and processes are seen in the light of its inheritance and survival value of its properties. This “explanation” does not explain why certain forms are possible. Goodwin with examples establishes how action of genes alone cannot establish the form of the organism (morphogenesis). Genes only play one of the parts in morphogenesis, but are not solely responsible for it (which is how neo-Darwinist account argue). He cites examples from complex systems such as Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, ant colonies to establish the fact that in any system there are different levels of organisation. And there are phenomena, emergent phenomena, which cannot be predicted on the basis of the properties constituent parts alone. Simple interactions of components at lower level can give rise to (often) surprising properties at higher level. He is very clear that natural selection is universal (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea?!)

> What this makes clear is that there is nothing particularly biological about natural selection: it is simply a term used by biologists to describe the way in which one form replaces another as a result of their different dynamic properties. This is just a way of talking about dynamic stability, a concept used for a long time in physics and chemistry. We could, if we wished, simply replace the term natural selection with dynamic stabilization, the emergence of the stable states in a dynamic system. p. 53

Goodwin uses the term morphogenetic space to convey the possible shape space that an organism can occupy. Thus seen from a complex systems perspective, the various unit of the organism interact to generate the form of the organism. Natural selection then acts as a coarse sieve on these forms with respect to the environmental landscape. The “aim” of the organism is not the climb the fitness lanscape but to achieve dynamic stability.

> The relevant notion for the analysis of evolving systems is dynamic stability: A necessary (though by no means sufficient} condition for the survival of a species is that its life cycle be dynamically stable in a particular environment. This stability refers to the dynamics of the whole cycle, involving the whole organism as an integrated system that is itself integrated into a greater system, which is its habitat. p. 179

Goodwin takes examples of biological model systems and shows how using mathematical models we can generate their forms. Structure of acetabularia (a largish ~1 inch single cell algae), the structure of eye, the Fibonacci pattern seen in many flower structures being the main examples. Also, how the three basic forms of leaf arrangement can be generated by variations on a theme in the morphospace are discussed in detail. The model shows that three major forms are the most probable ones, which is actually substantiated by observations in nature. In these examples, an holistic approach is taken in which genes, competition and natural selection only play a part are not the main characters but are interacting and cooperating with levels of organisation of the organism, environmental factors in the drama of life.

> Competition has no special status in biological dynamics, where what is important is the pattern of relationships and interactions that exist and how they contribute to the behavior of the system as an integrated whole.The problem of origins requires an understanding of how new levels of order emerge from complex patterns of interaction and what the properties of these emergent structures are in terms of their robustness to perturbation and their capacity for self-maintenance. Then all levels of order and organization are recognized as equally important in understanding the behavior of living systems, and the reductionist insistence on some basic material level of cause and explanation, such as molecules and genes, can be recognized as an unfortunate fashion or prejudice that is actually bad science. P.181

Since I am already a believer of the complex systems perspective, I was aware of some of the arguments in this book, but the particular worked examples and their interpretation for biology was a fresh experience.