Hey kids! I have a dark, and somewhat embarrassing secret to share with you this month. My kids tasted macaroni for the first time this year. Yep, I managed to get through 18 years of my eldest son’s life with not one mac ‘n cheese. In my defense I will say that I never tasted it as a kid either. You see, mac ‘n cheese really wasn’t that much of a thing in Australia before the Internet was invented.
Anyway, the first time I did cook up some macaroni I made way too much. (Although when you have three hungry boys, there’s never really any such thing as too many leftovers…) Yes, I did read the weight on the tiny packet that housed those little pasta tubes and yes, my maths brain did tell me that 500 grams of pasta is still 500 grams of pasta whether it’s in the shape of tiny tubes or long thin spaghetti. But still… that tiny packet of pasta just didn’t look like it would be enough to fill the bottomless stomachs of three hungry boys and one working man, so… I cooked up one and a half packets and my pot nearly overflowed!
If you’ve never watched your mum cook macaroni, now’s the time to ask her if I’m telling the truth. Better yet, ask if you can have some for dinner and HELP make it. That way, you can watch the magic happen before your eyes.
What’s going on?
But before you do that, let’s think about why this is so?
When pasta is first made it contains quite a bit of water (as do most foods). Now, it’s actually really yummy at this stage, but the problem with it is that it doesn’t keep for very long. That’s because the water and flour make a great breading ground for molds, bacteria and other nasties that you don’t want to be eating. So, to make a product that we can keep in the cupboard for a long time, the people who make pasta dehydrate it (that’s just a big word that means “dry it out”).
Now dehydrating pasta not only makes it keep much longer, it also makes it shrink and loose a LOT of weight. That’s good for a couple of reasons: 1) it doesn’t take up so much space in your cupboard (or the shelf at the shops) and 2) it’s lighter and so easier and cheaper to transport which makes it a really cheap, healthy foodstuff. The dry pasta is great for storing but it’s not very tasty in it’s dry state. And, since most pasta shapes are pretty thick, it’s also really hard and would be a bit of work for your poor jaw muscles to deal with.
So, to make it yummy we boil the pasta in lots of fresh water (usually with a bit of salt added for flavour). Now here’s the thing to watch for when your mum makes you some macaroni. Check the pot before she adds the pasta (carefully! don’t get your head too close because steam burns!) Notice how much water is in there. Once the pasta is ready, have a look at the pot again. You should notice that it looks like a lot of the water has gone missing.
Try turning this into an experiment….
If your mum is up to it, you could measure the cold water that you put in the pot (using a measuring cup) and write down the number of cups of water that went in the pot. Then, once the pasta is cooked, your mum could ‘catch’ the leftover water by placing a bowl under her strainer before straining the pasta. Once the water has cooled down, you can measure it with the same cup you measured the water into the pot. You’ll probably be surprised at how much water went missing!
So where did the water go?
The water gets absorbed into the pasta! It goes from being little and hard and not very tasty to being big and soft and yummy again. Check out the photo I took the last time I made macaroni…
On the left is an uncooked macaroni that managed to escape the pot of boiling water by hiding in the corner of the packet; on the right is a freshly cooked macaroni. There’s quite a big difference in size, isn’t there? Now, all pasta expands like this when it is cooked, but not all pasta seems to grow nearly as much as macaroni. I hope that by now you’re asking, “why?” Have a guess before reading on to find the answer.
The Secret of the Hollow Tube!
You see, the big difference between spaghetti (or most other pasta shapes) and macaroni is the little space INSIDE each piece of macaroni. Imagine a tiny, empty tunnel inside every macaroni tube.
When you cook spaghetti (which looks like a solid round stick), it gets fatter as it soaks up water. It swells outwards, but that’s about it.
But macaroni does something extra special! As its walls soak up water and get thicker, the entire tube swells bigger, and that tiny tunnel inside the macaroni gets bigger too! It’s like a balloon blowing up, but in this case the balloon’s skin also gets thicker at the same time.
So, macaroni is growing outwards from its shell as well as from its empty middle. This means each single piece of macaroni ends up taking up a lot more space than a single piece of spaghetti, even if they started at the same weight. It’s not just about how they fit together in the pot; it’s mostly about how much each tiny piece of macaroni expands by itself because of the empty space inside!
The Mystery Solved!
So there you have it. The mystery of the giant macaroni is solved! A big bowl of your favourite pasta sounds like the perfect way to celebrate. Bon appétit! 🙂
Have your own mystery?
I love asking and answering questions that help me and others learn. If you have any questions about anything interesting that you notice in your world, have mum or dad drop me a line and ask!
For parents
For more engaging lessons like this one, checkout our products page for the full Milestone Maths curriculum.
