🚀 go-pugleaf

Pepperoni versus baloney. Is water added to meat products?
Please help me to interpret data (see below) on microwave heating. I took a
piece of pepperoni (a cylinder whose diameter and height were 3 cm) and heated
it in the microwave oven for 30 seconds. Then the increase of the temperature
was measured in the center of the piece; it was 51 degrees C. A bologna
sausage, carved to the same size and shape, was also heatd under identical
conditions; the increase in temperature was only 32 degrees C. The masses of
two samples were 30 and 33 grams, respectively.

I initailly thought that the temperature change in a substance containing
more water should be smaller because specific heat of water is higher than
specific heat of organic materials, such as wood, fat, rice and dry meat. On
that basis alone I would conclude that pepperoni has less water per gram than
baloney. But this conclusion would only be valid if the amounts of heat
deposited by microwaves were identical in two samples. How can relative
amounts of heat deposited in different substances be evaluated? According to
my oven instruction "bones attract more microwave energy than meat." The
message is clear (replacing "attract" with "absorb") but too qualitative.
Where can I learn about factors influencing absorption of "cooking-microwaves"
in differnt materials? Do you know of a textbook which describes basic facts
and physics of modern cooking?
                               Ludwik Kowalski,  kowalski@apollo.montclair.edu