Dr Hector Perera        London

I THINK most discoveries are made by sheer accident and my scientific energy saving cooking is another discovery made similar way. Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when he was sitting under an apple tree when an apple feel on his head then he discovered gravity. That is a sheer accident. “Eureka!” (I have found it!), Archimedes, a celebrated mathematician, scientist, inventor, and confidant of the king. He was ordered by the King to find out if his thrown was made by mixing other metals other than pure gold. He was not allowed to break to find out the truth. He was thinking about it all the time even when he had a bath. As soon as he got into the bath tub, he got out of it fully naked and ran into the streets saying Eureka” repeatedly then ended up at the palace to meet the King. That discovery was made by sheer accident and it is valid up until now. Galileo made the discovery that the world went round the sun but not the sun went round the world. Since his discovery was against the church, then he was life imprisoned as a punishment but the truth remains all the time. I am sure I can find more discoveries made by sheer accident and I can let you know how I discovered my discovery.

    I knew cooking from Sri Lanka but not scientifically

When I was in Sri Lanka, even when I was studying for Advanced Level science, I started cooking at my boarding place. Sometimes I walked all the way to a hotel to eat but when it rains or when I am late I had to cycle with my food parcel rocking from side to side. One of the reasons is that when I got a packet of meals from a hotel and when I opened to eat, it didn’t quite appeal to me. It looked like that the rice is mixed with other curries but for some time I managed that way until I started to cook at the boarding place. There was no kitchen at the boarding place because that was just rooms only boarding house. Then I thought to keep the cooker near the far end of the rooms where there was the toilet and the bathroom. Since it was a single burner cooker that was no problem to find enough room. Those days we used kerosene as the energy even there was electricity. I must say kerosene cooker also gave a smell while cooking but it was alright since it was on the passage than in the rooms. Even the food gave smell and I thought it was quite normal.

Studying, sleeping and cooking in one room

When I came to England for further studies, I had a single room and they supplied an electric cooker or a hot plate to be kept in the room. I had my lunch at the Polytechnic like everybody in the class. Those days they were named a Polytechnic but much later they changed their name as Universities. I must say that I really didn’t like fish and chips and chicken and chips even for the supper since I had them for lunch. Then I wanted to cook something like what I did in Sri Lanka but there was no facilities. I tried to cook in the room then the food smell remained in the room. When I wore clothes to the University, I couldn’t bear the Asian curry smell on the clothes. No wonder that I had to spray some body spray to cover up these smells. After a while I found the adjoining room was packed with rubbish such as boxes and broken furniture then I thought to use that room for cooking. When I cleared them all I found that was a room with cooking facilities. Soon I moved the cooker to that room for cooking. That room was the kitchen of that house when the place was given as rooms to some boarders and I was one of them.

I gradually applied science to cooking

When I cooked I adjusted the cooker fire so that the smell didn’t spread too much. Any way I did more experiments how to cook at a lower fire so that there was a control of the food smell. I knew food are slow conductors of heat so I thought to supply heat slowly. Then thinking scientifically about the fire and smell then I found how to control the fire so that it cooks at a lower fire. Since I was studying chemistry, I tried to apply chemistry in cooking and it worked. I knew any food is a bad or a slow conductor so I used that idea in cooking. I tried to apply temperature, pressure and volume in cooking. There were gas laws more than 200yrs old and they were related to pressure, volume and temperature. I made use of them in order to cook scientifically.

Demonstrated my cooking to The Sustainable Energy Authority

After a long time of experiments I thought to demonstrate my work to the attention of The Sustainable Energy Authority in Sri Lanka. They were quite happy to issue me a valid certificate as well. That was demonstrated while I was holidaying in Sri Lanka. Then I contacted The Invention Commission about my work. They video recorded my work and added to their official web site.

Sirasa TV live cooking demonstration

The day after I demonstrated my work to The Sustainable Energy Authority, I was lucky to be invited for a live show on the following morning with Sirasa TV. I accepted the invitation and appeared in a live cooking programme on the following morning with Sirasa TV studio near Moratuwa. If anyone wished to see my work then please type my name as Dr Hector Perera then Sirasa cooking on the same line to Google search to see my work. You would see the two TV presenters Juliana and Sameera and a famous cook as well. I must say any British person wished to see this programme then there is a problem with the language because I had to speak both in English as well as in Sinhalese. I never knew the Sinhalese terms for certain scientific terms such as intermolecular reaction, intramolecular reactions and thermodynamic equilibrium condition and many more. I explained all that while doing the cooking demonstration. If British people would like to know my scientific energy saving cooking then I would stick to English language only in my explanation while I am demonstrating.

If my work is good enough to Sri Lanka

The Sustainable Energy Authority’s Director General admitted that I cooked with a gas flame less than 30% or 40% that means nearly 60% of the gas has been not used or in other words saved. Just imagine if one millions of people saved that much energy, who would say that my method of cooking and energy saving would not be useful to the general public? If my work was broadcasted in four different TV in Sri Lanka why not it is good enough to be broadcasted in any TV such as BBC in England? I am sure some people in England also would save some energy in cooking if they followed my method of cooking. Please remember that I am not a chef or a cook but a PhD qualified synthetic organic chemist and a chemistry teacher who made use of well-established gas laws in order to save gas in cooking, as I mentioned before further my work has been approved by The Sustainable Energy Authority in Sri Lanka. Why not I get a chance to demonstrate my scientific energy saving cooking to help the people in England? Your comments are welcomed perera6@hotmail.co.uk