Why is Microwaved mac & cheese burnt where they touch?

Question

enter image description here

After reheating cold about 1.5 oz. of Annie's Mac & Cheese shells for 15 seconds on high power in the microwave, the mac & cheese was burnt black only at certain points where the pasta is touching each other. Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on?

Veritasium made a video with touching grapes in a microwave oven. Without having anything to actually back up my claim (I don't remember whether he said anything about things other than grapes), I suspect something similar is happening here. At any rate, it looks cool. — Arthur, Oct 14 '19 at 08:23
@Arthur: I might be wrong but from what I learned about cut half grapes in a microwave, was that that effect was kinda special due to the fruit sugar. So not sure if it is the same effect (but likely at least a similiar effect) — Zaibis, Oct 15 '19 at 11:11
That is not macaroni. As you say, they are shells, or conchiglie. As such, it is also not mac & cheese. — Lightness Races in Orbit, Oct 15 '19 at 19:46
I'm "fairly confident" that the more esoteric explanations are overly so. Voltage is induced in closed conducting paths. AT points of contact the resistance is high and the flowing current creates "i squared R" heating. (Power dissipation = current squared x resistance). This does not requires resonance, appropriate wavelength items or other RF interacting factors. — Russell McMahon, Oct 16 '19 at 12:31
@LightnessRacesinOrbit Fine. Macaroni product and cheese: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/139.110 — Tristan, Oct 16 '19 at 17:23
@Tristan Interesting. It does appear that a governmental organisation in the USA (the FDA) has decided to lump loads of types of pasta into the category "macaroni products". This is, however, like "noodles" for not-noodles, purely an Americanism. I don't believe anybody else calls it that. — Lightness Races in Orbit, Oct 16 '19 at 17:42
@LightnessRacesinOrbit There are a ton of regulations on what various foods can be called. Have a look: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/chapter-I/subchapter-B — Tristan, Oct 16 '19 at 17:46
@Tristan Again, that's specific to, and made up by, your country. General English language (and Italian, for that matter) does not accept the word "macaroni" for something that is not macaroni. :) — Lightness Races in Orbit, Oct 16 '19 at 17:56
@LightnessRacesinOrbit who is General English and how can I meet him? In all seriousness, there are a host of other languages in which "macaroni" is the general term for pasta. — gormadoc, Oct 16 '19 at 18:46
@LightnessRacesinOrbit Not that it's on topic: The word macaroni (or its closest linguistic relative) is just "pasta" in Slavic languages, including Russian. The case in Italian is also not a clear cut as you're making it sound, if you allow for various dialects where the meaning is more broad than you're suggesting. Greek, where the word originates, also uses it for "pasta". Same for several other languages around the world. — Brick, Oct 16 '19 at 19:26

score 59 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 14 '19 at 05:11

59

I get the same thing reheating some discs of glazed carrots. And there are several videos of folks doing this intentionally with grapes.

An article published last year in PNAS says this will happen with almost any pair of similarly-sized object with sufficient water. The shape of the pairs appears to set up a resonance that concentrates the electric field at the point where they touch. The higher intensity field there heats the surroundings and burns the food.

answered Oct 14 '19 at 05:11

BowlOfRed

40,008

10

The reader should immediately search for images of the phenomenon. It is awesome. – Mindwin Remember Monica Oct 14 '19 at 14:56
3

I believe size was also important, but essentially, yes. – Draco18s no longer trusts SE Oct 14 '19 at 15:18
8

@Mindwin Any suggestion of what search terms to use? "burnt microwave food" doesn't exactly return these depictions. – maxathousand Oct 14 '19 at 17:12
12

@maxathousand "microwave grape plasma". – Mindwin Remember Monica Oct 14 '19 at 17:38
5

Here is a video which explains this phenomenon and briefly interviews the authors of the mentioned paper for more details. – today Oct 14 '19 at 17:42
@Mindwin Ah, it sounded like you knew a term to find examples with various foods, but perhaps this isn't a named phenomenon. – maxathousand Oct 14 '19 at 17:43
The important point being (quoting from another website): If you see the plasma sort of escaping the point of contact between the two grapes and going to the top of the microwave, definitely turn it off, because it will melt a hole in the top of your microwave. – ChatterOne Oct 15 '19 at 14:29

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 15 '19 at 14:19

@BowlOfRed hit on it solidly. The noodles are acting as waveguides, because of their size and shape. Where they meet, a contiguous surface is created, but with a much higher resistivity, as it's a narrow point contact.

Based on a table of refractive indexes and a table of frequency/wavelength, this effect would be especially effective when the total length of the joined area is at a resonance of the base wavelength of 3.54 inches (2.5ghz in air is 12cm, water is more refractive). So if they match in physical dimensions to 3.54 inches, 1.77 inches or 0.885 inches, the effect will channel a decent amount of energy. If that boundary between globules has a high resistance and carries a high amount of energy, it'll dissipate a lot of that energy as heat and light, potentially even creating plasma flashes as in the ideal natural example, the grapes mentioned by @BowlOfRed. Google "Grape Plasma," or just check out this video.

P.S. I don't know how big the Auntie Anne's shells are, but the curved concave shape is probably increasing their actual resonant size by something like 1.5 times. I'm not exactly sure how to work the formula on an irregular or non-ideal shape. Does that sound more like a match?

P.P.S. The YouTube dude captured some awesome shots of arrested plasma. He even talks some of the actual science of it. Trés magnifique!

Note that your table of refractive indices is for visible light. Refractive indices are different at different frequencies (an effect that's noticeable even within the regime of visible light, as we have rainbows). At the 2.5GHz scale, the refractive index of water is closer to 10. — Arthur, Oct 15 '19 at 14:29
These are not noodles. They are conchiglie (or "shells"). Noodles are long and thin. — Lightness Races in Orbit, Oct 15 '19 at 19:48
@LightnessRacesinOrbit Yes, that bugs me too… In the UK, at least, noodles != pasta. (Different composition, shapes, and culinary uses.) But according to Wiktionary, in the US ‘noodle’ has a wider meaning. — gidds, Oct 16 '19 at 09:36
Auntie Anne's are pretzels. The mac and cheese is Annie's ;) — Kyle Delaney, Oct 16 '19 at 17:03

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 16 '19 at 12:36

I'm "fairly confident" that the more esoteric explanations are overly so.

Voltage is induced in closed conducting paths in an RF field (here a complex E-M field with various nodes due to the cavity but that is not a major factor).

AT points of contact the resistance is high and the flowing current creates "i squared R" heating. (Power dissipation = current squared x resistance). This does not requires resonance, appropriate wavelength items or other RF interacting factors.

For a spectacular and odiferously vile effect

Take an OLD and UNWANTED CD or DVD
The CD / DVD will be utterly destroyed in the process.
Stand it on a drinking glass or similar in the microwave oven.
Set microwave to 3 to 5 seconds (longer is a mistake)
Go
Superb firestorm in miniature with "sheet lightning across the CD surface.
Do not breathe the fumes. Conclude that it was fun but should have been dome outdoors. Wow!

Why is Microwaved mac & cheese burnt where they touch?

3 Answers3

Linked