Gravy and Gravity

Housten I have a problem!

My gravy keeps running off the edge of my plate, despite me having carefully crafted channels in my food for it to run through and irrigate my dinner. Logic and the laws of gravity would say that on an even surface liquids would run to the lowest point, in this case the base of the plate. So why dosen't it? Is this just another example of my weirdness or is it something about the gravy itself, is it attracted to the table, is there somethig about it's viscosity? I do like a good gloop in gravy, none of that runny brown water che's call jus.

  • One of my favourite meals (when I was single and lived mainly on plain carbs and cheese) was a cheesy mashed potato crater or "fort" (with or without crenellations and turrets) with a flooded central lake of gravy.

    The trick was to eat the mash at a rate that retained the integrity of the interior gravy lake, while ensuring an optimal admixture of gravy/mash for taste and textural purposes. 

    Btw my personal belief is that all jus becomes gravy with the simple addition of a thickening agent. Unsure if this hypothesis is correct.

  • I am reminded on an episode of Brainiac where John Tickle walked on custard. It's on youtube.

  • I really don't see the point of bikes with massive fairings and stuff, but then I was used to rattling around on "proper" bikes, old and British, a Triumph Bonneville was comfortable for a passenger a semi chopped solid framed A10, was not, especially in the cold and wet.

    I've always thought of bikes as being a lifestyle choice rather than just a means of transport.

  • I don't get these people who have these massive goldwing tye of bikes

    I did own one of the very first Goldwings (1975 model, 1,000cc) which I picked up cheap as it needed a lot of repairs.

    No plastic fairings or any of the modern rubbish - it even had a kick start (plus electric start thankfully).

    It really was like driving your armchair - it wallowed over rolling curves in the road, had brakes that certainly felt like they were made in 1975 and had a, err, stately power delivery.

    It still beat all the hot hatchbacks of the 1980s although slowing down took advanced planning.

    All that said I quite liked the quality and reliability of it - once serviced and the cam belts changed it was lovely and smooth.

    It wasn't gravity that was this ones biggest enemy but inertia.

  • No wonder you now live in a hot country, have you warmed up yet? Motor bikes are great when it's warm and dry, nothing quite gives that sense of freedom, but it's miserable when it's cold and wet. I don't get these people who have these massive goldwing tye of bikes, they look like a motorised armchair and about as manouvreable, it just looks to me like you get the worst bits of a car and a bike, you're open to the elements, and can't get through traffic jams. Do you still ride?

  • when the Scots say 'it's pishing down' they mean rain like someones emptying a bucket for hours or even days?

    I was a biker for a few years in that environment and it was a big part in my  decision to move to England (North Buckinghamshire) where it was way drier.

    I remember driving along and the volume of water being so much it just swamped the electrics of the bike and meant it cut out, leaving me stranded at the side of the road as cars drove past a gnats whisker away, soaking me in with huge sprays from the river running down the road.

    Not the fondest of memories - I'm not sure I ever fully dried out from that.

    All our calculations needed to include any perceptable environmental factors whether wind (and the angle of the wind), speed of the vehicle, friction co-efficient of the glass and the water, any icing factor (if close to zero) and contamination in the water.

    The though processes I have used through life and it made me an excellent troubleshooter in my IT career and now in property development. At least my 3 years of uni had one good, practical use.

  • From what I remember from seeing him interviewed this is the sort of thing Richard Feynman used to do, his Dad taught him I think.

    Did your lecturers take into account the horrizontal rain so common in Scotland? Or the average size of water droplet, after all what's heavy rain in England is normal on the West Coast of Scotland and much of England has no idea that when the Scots say 'it's pishing down' they mean rain like someones emptying a bucket for hours or even days?

  • Iain the fact that you still remember all this shows what an effective lesson it was.

    i'm a bit weird in that I love to understand the physics that governs our everyday world and the lesson had homework tasks that made you look at real workd situations and try to work out the physics involved to achieve the effect you saw (ie develop a hypothesis) and then see if the law of physics backed this up.

    Then it had to be reproducable and capable of being changed yet remain consistent.

    So one example was watching the rain moving down the window on the bus / train going home (lots of this in Scotland) and measure the angle of the water drops on the window and work out which laws were in play.

    So you would have gravity, friction, surface tension, wind resistance and even evapouration.

    I must have looked a right weirdo with holding up my protractor to the bus window, timing the drips and scribbling furiously in my notepad.

    The course was Applied Physics which was right up my street. It was a shame it lost itself in year 3 to be all maths and theory (especially advanced quantum theory) where I lost interest.

    I still do some of the practice sessions when bored sometimes - much to my wifes annoyance.

  • This was a plate of toad in the hole, served with carrots and greens, both broccol and spring greens. I think my batter although crisp was also absorbant especially where it was cut.

    If it were well buttered mash, then would it depend on how buttery the mash was? More fat then the gravy slides off.

    Going back for seconds of gravy risks the horror that is skin, skin on gravy is only a fraction less disgusting than skin on a milk pudding, it's never a good idea to have to slice gravy of chew the lumps!

    Iain the fact that you still remember all this shows what an effective lesson it was.

  • Speaking as someone who doesn't like any gravy or sauce for sensory reasons...  I wonder why people can't either dip their food in the gravy or just take enough to avoid spillages - returning for more later if necessary?  It seems illogical to make your food swim in the stuff. 

  • It isn't just gravity vs gravy in play here, you also have fluid dynamics such a viscosity, adhesion and porosity all weaving their tangled web.

    The surface tension of the gravy stops it from spreading too fast but if you have buttered the mash then the co-efficient of friction of gravy on mash is much reduced, facilitating a higher velocity to its lowest point.

    make it too thick and the gravy will not percolate through the peas as hoped, resulting in a glacier like push to the lowest point where the surface tension will make it form a dome of sorts, often causing it to pull together in places where the plate no longer extends to, resulting in the stalegtites forming.

    It is a many faceted gem this thing of beauty that is gravy.

    Would you believe this was actually a homework from my physics degree to study the fluid dynamics of gravy on a Sunday lunch? I think they were just too cheap to write up some proper homework tasks!

  • Maybe a bigger plate is the answer?

  • Now that gravity has become mavity, gravy has gone its own way. Creative differences.