Like needles in a haystack. Titanium deposits in sand, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Photo by Niel Overey.
Conceived beneath the skies of the ancient world, the Titans were the incestual god-lineage of Zeus: gigantic creatures who bore names like Oceanus, Themis, Hyperion. The metals then known to man were those purest of elements, and it was some two millenia before titanium would be discovered and used.
With an unmatched strength-to-weight ratio, low thermal conductivity and a tendency to be impervious to corrosion, titanium is indeed a metal of mythical proportions, even to the point of being mythically difficult to work with.
Flour
Errol Flynn, Nora Eddington, Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles enjoying the fruit of 10,000 years of human technology.
For a single ingredient wheat flour has an amazing number of iterations. It can be gruel or wedding cake, Wonder bread or baguette, croissant or hot dog bun. Flour seems simple, but it can give the occasional baker some anxiety — what exactly separates a good pie crust from a bad pie crust when it’s just flour, fat and water? Why is this cookie recipe calling for bread flour, and should I care that I don’t have it?
Read on for a primer. A little de-mystifying means better sweets for you.
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