Forget McDonald's or your neighbourhood fast food joint. For best French fries, plan a trip for a drive-thru on the largest planet in our solar system!
Sounds fancy but for future space travellers, scientists have answered where in the solar system can they find the best French fries - on Jupiter.
Scientists reached a European Space Agency centrifuge to see what gravitational conditions would produce the perfectly-fried French fry.
Using a special deep fat frier, John Lioumbas and Thodoris Karapantsios at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, tested different orientations of French fries under different gravitational conditions.
They were able to fry potato sticks as the centrifuge did its cycles - ramping-up the system from 1.8 to 9 times earth gravity (Gs). As the relative gravity of the frier was increased, the researchers discovered that varying the gravity experienced during frying affects the heat transfer through the potato, said the research published in the journal Food Research International.
They discovered that one needs to fry a French fry at a 0 degree inclination (i.e. flat) under 3 Gs for an optimally crispy French fry crust.
The gas giant Jupiter has a 'surface' gravity of nearly 3 times the earth gravity and, therefore, has the ideal gravitational conditions for cooking French fries.
"The idea behind this research was to reveal the cooking characteristics of foodstuffs in different gravitational environments for future space travellers," said Lioumbas.
