Sear factor: Swetha Sivakumar, on the science of charring

We only recently learnt how to tame fire well enough to allow for precision in the kitchen. Is is possible we love a bit of char, because we’ve always had some?

We’ve talked a bit about charring in the past, mainly as it relates to sugar and the sugars in vegetables and meat.

It isn’t a baingan bharta if the eggplant doesn’t start out roasted, the skin crackling and peeling away on an open flame. (Adobe Stock)

But burning a kadhai of vegetables recently (one really cannot afford to be distracted in the kitchen) made me think about how rare this kind of event now is, and I began to think about how we got to this point in the kitchen.

It’s easy to forget that our ability to fully control fire and prevent charring,