Man can dip fingers in boiling oil
This fellow has figured out a way to dip his fingers into boiling oil to retrieve morsels of food.
Ram Babu, a small vendor in the busy by lines of Allahabad has been selling Pakoras for twenty years now. The fact that astonishes everyone is that though he uses his hands to take out the Pakoras from the frying pan full of boiling oil,but he has never burnt his hand.(via Arbroath)
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Though I'm sure I won't be the first to say this, I bet Ram Babu moonlights as a high school chemistry teacher.
I remember the older brother of a good friend of mine (also a friend in his own right) did this. He made us french fries once, and just took them out of the boiling oil with his bare hands in about four grabs.
He had a theory that there was nothing special in this - that the normal moisture on the hands evaporates and forms a vapour barrier to keep the oil off your skin.
I did not have the gumption to test his theory.
Okay, really, how does he do this?
When I was a grill cook, I noticed that if some piece of meat or green pepper got onto me, I had until a five count to flick it off before I was burned. But this is much, much hotter. He doesn't even wipe off all the oil!
pakora a drunken delicacy in scotland. nowhere to be found in england. sad times.
with the deep fried Mars Bars?
Back when I used to work as a battery chemist, we had a guy who could function indefinitely with 70% sulfuric acid on his skin. It was pretty alarming.
My Google-fu is failing me, but there was a documentary on PBS awhile back about a scientist who was traveling through rural India to explain to people how these "magic tricks" work. One of them was this hot oil trick. Another was a "medicine man" who made "blood" pour out of a coconut and took people's money to "heal" them. If anyone remembers the name of this and can hyperlink to that documentary, please add it to the comments here.
If his hands are wet or sweaty, as long as he's quick, he's fine. The water provides protection from the boiling oil.
*I remember the older brother of a good friend of mine*
In my case it was my friend's cousin.
But he used his teeth to "bob" for chile relleno's. What was really funny was that the oil cooked his Dali-esque moustache into two solid rings which he then broke off and gave to this girl who looped them into her ears and wore them as earrings the rest of the night.
Later she won a contest.
@Takuan don't knock the mars bars - with chocolate as waxy and disgusting as Mars makes, it's the only way the poor souls in Scotland can eat them. What do you expect from a country that does its best to try to make otherwise inedible things edible by frying them?
Haggis is delicious, but I'd never eat it without having fried the shit out of it.
I would love to know how he does this as well, especially after nearly deep frying my finger in a Chicken Francaise mishap yesterday...
Deep fried Mars bars are a self fulfilling urban myth.The story was apocryphal,Then some enterprising grease jockey decided his brewed up patrons would actually eat,No enjoy, such a delicacy.So Scotlands shame(vol12 part 7c)was born.
Yer maw-Mrs Unis from Edinburgh does a good pakora
Truly scottish!
Isn't this one of those "Strange but True Science Facts!!!1!1!" things? Like how you can pour liquid nitrogen in your mouth, or stick your hand in molten lead, or walk across coals, etc.? There's always a reason why, in theory, the molecules will line up just so, just as there's always a reason why, in practice, your lab proctor ends up swearing really loudly and running for the chemical showers with his hair on fire.
There's also this guy in Thailand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4hjrxTtbI
It's called the Leidenfrost effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect
I remember watching the cook at the the Silvertop Diner in Providence RI pull french fries and chicken fingers out of the deep fryer with his bare hands in complete awe.
Clearly not the Leidenfrost effect here, because you can see the oil sticking to his fingers, without a vapor barrier.
What the... THERE IS A LADLE RIGHT THERE!
Solid grease or lard coating his hand? Or just have a bucket of ice water handy, get your fingers cold and wet then grab fast. Maybe?
And hey, if he ever slips up and leaves them in too long, he can serve up delicious fried fingers!
When I was young my first regular job was at McDonalds. I had to clean the vat, but couldn't stand the ginormous gloves they provided (the internal fibers exacerbated my skin condition). So I'd do it with kitchen gloves, which would only last a week or two before melting.
The dripping oil onto the arms rarely burned to the point of scarring. But it was extremely hot. Management finally found out after a couple months and... requested I stop doing it my way. :)
Does the Leidenfrost effect work with oil, too?
Ancient Belgian druidic magic. At least if you believe the comic Asterix and the Goths.
At their annual conference, Valuaddetax the druid's entry in the contest is a potion that makes you immune to pain. He demonstrates it by taking his pommes frites out of the oil with bare hands. So there.
I believe I remember reading about something like this on DI: How to Dip Your Fingers in Molten Lead and Other Useful Tricks.
Apparently you dip your hand in water first and then into the molten lead, so the lead evaporates the water and doesn't burn your hand.
Lots of other tricks too, like walking on sharp shards of broken glass (ouch!)
Link: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=295
I swear I did this when I was a fry boy.
Dropped the tongs in the fryer and just reached in and grabbed 'em out b4 thinking about it. Never trusted the memory though since I had a head full of acid at the time..
i work in a fish and chip shop, and i am actually amazed, i quite regularly splash myself when rushing around at busy times and i have a few burns to prove it, although i have found like someone said before, you have a second or two to brush hot oil away before it burns.
a similar game we have played at work though is seeing who can dip their fingers in for longest, although we do dip them in batter first, and put the oil at around 100 degrees which isn't too hot as oil goes.
we need a demonstration. Volunteers?
I worked in a restaurant with a guy who did this. He'd stick his hands in a bucket of ice water then right into and out of the frier. I saw him do it three or four times.
Reminds me of a Smith & Jones sketch where a grill cook took french fries from boiling oil with bare hands and talked an amazed customer to try it.
Add me to the list of fryboys who have gone diving for tongs in boiling oil and come out unscathed. It's almost cathartic to have a BoingBoing post validate this phenomenon, because I can't count the number of people who have looked at me like I'm insane when I tell them the story.
#7 - I have an idea I've seen the "blood in the coconut" guy on Penn and Teller's Bullshit, but I can't be sure.
Looks to me like he's got batter on his hands, which would do the job nicely.
@yer_maw #4
You must be in the wrong part of England. Pakora is available in the West Midlands. I know as I had some for my dinner the other day :) Yum.
Molten lead:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sN5aMjTCfo4
It's easy, just spit on your fingers first.
we need a demonstration. Volunteers?
You're just looking for a free snack.
Deep Fried Mars Bars are a Scottish thing?
Man Australia gets the best of everyone's cuisine!
I've always preferred deep fried snickers though.
Can you buy Dim Sims anywhere but Australia? (Not the same as Dim Sum).
Can he retrieve his mum's wedding ring from the egg-boiler?
you know whaddwud be funny? I'll tell ya whaddud be funny; have some guy good with the tong dive agree to do a demo - only thus time ya have a #1 leg-hold gopher trap already in the fryer widdout tellin 'em.
Now, THAT'ud be FUNNY!
if i remember the bbc documentary mentioned above from when i last saw it, the explanation was a layer of lemon juice on top of the oil. so the the leidenfrost effect combined with optical illusion.
How to dip your fingers in molten lead - Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, November 17, 2005
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/17/how-to-dip-your-fing.html