Editing 2778: Cuisine

{{comic
| number    = 2778
| date      = May 19, 2023
| title     = Cuisine
| image     = cuisine_2x.png
| imagesize = 200x312px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = My connection to it goes way back, to my early days, when I was just a cloud of primordial hydrogen collapsing in the darkness of space.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Cueball]] is explaining a recipe to [[White Hat]], describing it as {{w|Fusion cuisine}}, typically used to describe a style of cuisine based on combining aspects of the cuisines of two or more cultures, such as a combination of French and Chinese food, or Mexican and Korean food. However, he conflates this with {{w|nuclear fusion}}, combining atomic nuclei to create new kinds of atoms.

The recipe is described as the initiation of {{w|deuterium}} fusion in a kilogram ("four cups") of {{w|heavy water}} and allowing the reaction to continue to its endpoint, {{w|iron}}. The "very high heat" specified in the recipe would start at the four million-plus Kelvin at which {{w|deuterium fusion}} is initiated in stars, and could possibly reach the billions of Kelvin at which {{w|supernova}}s synthesize atoms heavier than iron, such as copper, zinc, selenium and iodine, which are essential in trace quantities for mammals. Unfortunately, heating a saucepan to even four million Kelvin would likely vaporize even the largest of kitchens, and any cooks therein. Most heavier elements are probably created when two Neutron stars spiral into each other (but they are remnants of super nova explosions).

It should be noted that these are frequently omitted starting steps for every known recipe, as they are how the ingredients themselves are created.

The title text refers to the time before {{w|stellar fusion}}, just after the Big Bang when most matter was hydrogen atoms. See [[2723: Outdated Periodic Table]] for more on what other atoms were present. These primordial hydrogen atoms formed clouds that eventually collapsed into galaxies, forming stars that then created all heavier elements in one way or another. It took a long time but eventually some of these hydrogen atoms created Cueball and everything else on Earth. See [[1123: The Universal Label]]. People often say that an interest of theirs goes back to their "early days", referencing their childhood, but in this case it appears that Cueball's interest goes back to several billions of years before he was born, indicating that it is his atoms that are interested in this cuisine – not himself – as they were the ones around when his interest began. Actually mainly his protons. And it was because of their interest in fusing together that Cueball came to be.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat stands behind Cueball, who is cooking on a stove seen from the side. Cueball has his left hand on the handle of a pot which is on one of the stove's burners. In Cueball's right hand is a small cup.]
:Cueball: Next, we heat four cups of heavy water over '''''very''''' high heat until it thickens and becomes rich in iron.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I'm getting really into fusion cuisine.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Puns]]