Making Cultures - Form and Matter

Exploring Starch As A Material

Riya Israni

Intent, Context, Questions:

Just like there are various experiments performed in a chemistry or physics lab, Engaging with the environment, trying out different recipes, using different tools for performing them, playing with proportions, etc are some of the things that we do every day in our Kitchens which is so called our ‘Domestic Lab’. It is interesting to see how things change their forms while reacting with different ingredients and by going through different processes like heating, cooling, baking, etc and emerge into something completely new. The materials used in the making process are the very locally available and easily accessible materials. The making process plays a very important role and has a constant human involvement in it.

Starch, being one such locally available material seemed to be really interesting because of its changing nature right from a white solid powder turning into a viscous paste on heating and again changing to a solid form after cooling. It is generally used for cooking purposes like a thickening agent, as an adhesive, as a crisping cover for fried snacks, etc. So, for my experiments I chose corn starch (extracted from the endosperm of corn) to be the base material. The questions that constantly struck into my mind were:

Can this material be only used for culinary works or are there any other possible forms it can take by using different techniques?
Can there be perishable built forms?

In order to explore the possibilities, I started the experiments by gaining some prior knowledge about the material, its physical and chemical properties, its uses and so on. I started collecting all the basic locally available materials like vinegar, glycerin, waste corrugated paper box, human hair, etc and all the necessary tools like measuring cups/spoons, spatula, etc for the same. For understanding this material better, I tried three different sets of experiments which were: (1) Sheet experiments, (2) Making forms using piping bag, (3) Making chunkier forms. The sheet experiments were tried on a bit larger scale while the other set of experiments were comparatively smaller. In the first set of experiments the mixture was laid in the form of sheet on three materials which were aluminium foil, fabric and butter paper. In the second set of experiments, a plastic piping bag was used for creating different forms and lastly in the third set of experiments the mixture was used to make some chunkier forms like a block, sphere. Before performing the above mentioned experiments two sample sheet experiments were performed using fibers like coconut fibers and human hair from which the human hair sample appeared to be more harder and stronger compared to the coconut fibers sample. All the experiments were performed in this domestic space at home.

Sheet Experiments:

Experiment 1:

Materials: Corn starch, vinegar, glycerin, salt, water, human hair/ coconut fibers.

Method:

· Take 1 tbsp corn starch, 1 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp glycerin, a pinch of salt and 60 ml water, human hair/ coconut fibers in a beaker.

· Mix all the ingredients perfectly.

· Heat the mixture on a low flame till it starts getting bubbles.

· Take it out from the heat and use a spatula to lay it in the form of sheet.

· Note that it is laid uniformly.

Observations:

The sheet with human hair appeared to be harder in strength than the coconut fiber sheet maybe because of dense fibers that acted as reinforcement but it started curling inwards with time.

Experiment 2:

Materials: Corn starch, vinegar, glycerin, salt, water.

Method:

· Take 4 tbsp corn starch, 4 tsp vinegar, 4 tsp glycerin, 1 tsp salt and 240 ml water in a beaker.

· Mix all the ingredients perfectly.

· Heat the mixture on a low flame till it starts getting bubbles.

· Take it out from the heat and use a spatula to lay it in the form of sheet.

· Note that it is laid uniformly.

Observations:

In experiment 2.1, the mixture was laid in the form of a uniform sheet and then kept in the oven, after it was taken out and kept for sometime it started developing cracks and instead of forming a single uniform sheet it got fragmented due to the cracks.
In experiment 2.2, the edges become very firm and start curling the fabric inwards and get the texture of the fabric and its a bit difficult to peel out the sheet since the edges get attached to the fabric.
In experiment 2.3, the aluminium foil starts developing small holes with time and while peeling out the sheet it becomes difficult since the sheet is a bit bigger in size which is flexible enough and can be torn easily hence should be peeled out with care.

On butter paper

Type of drying: Oven dried for 35 mins at 50 degree celsius.

On Fabric

Type of drying: Sun dried

On aluminium foil

Type of drying: Sun dried

Experiment 3:

Materials: Corn starch, vinegar, glycerin, salt, water, human hair.

Method:

· Take 4 tbsp corn starch, 4 tsp vinegar, 4 tsp glycerin, 1 tsp salt and 240 ml water, human hair in a beaker.

· Mix all the ingredients perfectly.

· Heat the mixture on a low flame till it starts getting bubbles.

· Take it out from the heat and use a spatula to lay it in the form of sheet.

· Hang the sheet from four corners and let it dry.

· Note that it is laid uniformly.

Observations:

In process

Making Forms Using Piping Bag:

Materials: Corn starch, vinegar, glycerin, salt, water.

Method:

· Take 4 tbsp corn starch, 4 tsp vinegar, 4 tsp glycerin, 1 tsp salt and 240 ml water in a beaker.

· Mix all the ingredients perfectly.

· Heat the mixture at a low flame till a suitable consistency.

· See to it that there are no lumps in the mixture.

· Pour the mixture in the piping bag.

· Make the desired forms and let them dry.

Observations:

The forms start gaining strength and become harder on drying with a reduction in their size due to loss of moisture content.

In these experiments the thickness of the 2 D forms was 3 mm and was kept for drying and the final output resulted into a thickness of 1 mm which were similar to the cutouts of a plastic sheet.
Initially the thickness of the 3 D forms was 3 cm which after drying was found to be 2.5 cm.

Making Chunkier Forms:

Experiment 1:

Materials: Corn starch, paper, water.

Method:

· Take 2 cups of cardboard pieces and soak it overnight in water.

· Take ½ cup of corn starch in a bowl and make a solution by adding water into it.

· Mix both the ingredients in a mixer and add water according to the consistency to form a paste.

· Pour the paste in a mold and keep it for drying.

Observations/ Learnings:

It took almost 8-10 days for drying completely but resulted in the formation of a very hard block wherein a hammer and nail could be used .

Experiment 2:

Method:

· Mix all the ingredients in a beaker and stir well.

· Heat the mixture at a low flame till it starts getting bubbles (boiling point).

· Take it off the heat and let it cool a bit.

· Pour the mixture in a mold or use your hands to shape it.

Experiment 2.1:

Materials: Corn starch (1 tbsp), vinegar (1 tsp), glycerin (1 tsp), salt ( a pinch), water (60 ml).

Type of drying: Sun dried

Experiment 2.2:

Materials: Corn starch (1 tbsp), vinegar (1 tsp), glycerin (1 tsp), salt ( a pinch), water (60 ml).

Type of drying: Oven dried

Experiment 2.3:

Materials: Corn starch (1 tbsp), vinegar (1 tsp), salt ( a pinch), water (60 ml),

Type of drying: Oven dried

Experiment 2.4:

Materials: Corn starch (1 tbsp), vinegar (1 tsp), baking soda (a pinch) salt ( a pinch), water (60 ml).

Type of drying: Oven dried

Observations:

All the samples were sort of jelly like and squishy in nature.
When dried in oven the upper layer of the sample was a bit hard and rough.
In the last sample, the form starts breaking after some time and is a bit softer compared to other samples.
The thickness of the forms before and after drying differs by 5-6 mm in every case.

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