By David Ponce
Oh, Japan, how you delight us with your wacky shenanigans. The latest? How about a fully functional aquarium that exists… right inside a deep fryer. No, no… let me explain this right. See, you have this aquarium with real live fish, and then, sitting right on top, is piping hot oil (163 Celsius) that is actually used to cook food. Since the water and the oil don’t mix, all the fish have to do to stay alive is not venture into the hot oil on top. What’s more, fallen crumbs from the frying process fall into this aquarium, serving as fish food. The fish are then able to live from 5 to 10 years, as long as they don’t get curious about what’s above the water line. It’s great stuff, but… we have a few questions about all this: how is the heat from the oil not transferred to the food through conduction? How do the fish breathe? Don’t they need oxygen? The food that falls below can’t be healthy; why aren’t they obese?
Whatever the case, after the jump, we’re including a video. And, get this… a link to a Japanese website called “WaterFryer”…
Update: Finally, some sense. From various translations of the video, the fish are just to demonstrate that there really is water under the fryer. The point of the water is so that the extra bits of batter from the food fall down into it instead of staying and burning in the oil, thus keeping the oil clean. The danger of a water/oil explosion is reduced because the water sinks down before it can explode. So, The Waterfryer is just that: a fryer that keeps itself somewhat clean by having its oil sit atop some water.
No one knows if goldfish were harmed in the making of this video.
[ WaterFryer ] VIA [ Spluch ]
P.S. If anyone speaks Japanese and can bring some light on all this, we’d really appreciate it.
