By Raul Dias
As a high school student, studying physics—and all its associated principles, laws and theories—was one my least favourite things to do. With cookery and food tech being the exact opposite! Who would have guessed that one day, I’d be sitting down for the final course of a meal, seeing the two ‘consciously couple’ so very effectively? And while we’re all too familiar with the results of the collision of the world of food and chemistry aka. molecular gastronomy, a touch of physics has eluded us thus far.
Well, that’s exactly what happened to me at Izaya, the new Robata Thai restaurant at Mumbai’s NCPA. Grabbing every single eyeball in the room and making its presence felt rather spectacularly, The Levitating Dasquoise—sitting pretty in a glass bowl—literally glides across to my table, hovering precariously above a black plastic base, all thanks to the quantum mechanical effect called diamagnetism. To get all geeky on you, an applied magnetic field, both, at the base of the specially made glass bowl, and atop the black base stand, creates an induced magnetic field in the opposite direction, causing a repulsive force which makes the bowl levitate in thin air.
In total sync with the levitating concept, the dacquoise itself is a super light confection that is made up of 54% Belgian Callebaut chocolate, Normandy Chantilly cream and tart, Mahabaleshwar strawberries. Tiny meringue kisses made with almond powder and soy lecithin are strewn about and the dessert is garnished with edible nasturtium flowers, micro greens and gold leaf.
(This column first appeared in the 14th January 2018 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/the-levitating-dacquoise/article22439867.ece)
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