Monday, January 05, 2009

ASE (Altitude Surströmming Effect)!

Altitude Surströmming Effect (ASE) is a subtle, yet concrete, problem induced by altitude that affects mostly all packaged food goods. Its effects on cleanness of wearable garnishments can be devastating!

Surströmming is a Swedish canned delicacy, usually served on tunnbröd paper-like bread, made from the most refined fermentation of the best herrings on the Baltic Sea. The wonderfully flavored herring is fished when at its peak of flavor in spring, as days become longer under the unbuttoning eyes of the beautiful white and yellow Mosippas (Anemone Puslatilla Vernalis).
Swedes have this exotic appetite for a peculiar and refined cuisine.. Like the traditional Easter dish, Gravad Lax (slightly fermented salt-marinated raw salmon with sugar and a hint of dill), Surströmming seems to be one such traditional peculiarity of the vast, varied, and exhuberant sweedish cuisine!..
Anyway, surströmming is not known for only its mere distinctive taste or ordinarily queer aroma. The care needed for unpackaging the canned nutriment contents is also famous! During the months of storage, the fermentation process native to surströmming qualities generally builds up enough pressure inside the can for certain airline companies to ban it in luggage. Safely opening a can of surströmming involves carefully placing a cloth to keep herring parts in obedience to the law of gravity.

So, ASE is, in essence, the effect of difference in pressure caused by the lower outside air pressure induced by the altitude difference. Any normal food packaging bought 2400m below its opening location will behave similarly to surströmming when not carefully opened.
Despite the person expressing its displeasure regarding ASE's splashes when opening the [vanilla pudding / yogurt / canned tuna / meatball can / etc] at 2400m, this effect is usually too quick and no photo could be taken of it in action to ornament this post. So the picture above refers to a confirming scientific experiment that consisted of filling a water bottle with La Izaña Observatory's air, and taking it to our Hotel during Christmas, at approximately 15m above sea level. The air inside the bottle has altitude-sensitive properties that interact with the plastic packaging making it acquire a different shape! This bottle was then taken back to the altitude of 2400m and surprisingly acquired its original shape (after a few documented noisy plastic sounds during the trip).

As a conclusion, it is advised to take preventive anti-spill actions when opening cans or packages at moderately high altitudes.

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