MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What Are Those Spinning Things Atop UPS Delivery Trucks?
For most of adults, the sight of a big brown UPS truck, with its all-brown-clad driver, pulling into the driveway of your home is about as exciting as it would be for a kid to see an ice cream truck rolling down his or her street. “What can brown do for you?” Well, most of the time it’s bringing something you ordered online & have been impatiently tracking online ever since you placed your order. As exciting as UPS trucks may be, though, they also have their quirks. If you were to look closely, you’d notice most UPS trucks have some unusual spinning contraption perched atop their roofs. What is that?
That is actually a Flettner ventilator, and it’s purpose is pretty simple: to keep air circulating within the vehicle on which it’s been installed. UPS trucks can’t really run air conditioning due to the fact that the doors are almost always open so drivers can enter & exit expeditiously. So, in place of A/C, Flettner ventilators are put in place to keep air circulating so that neither the vehicle cabin or package area overheat. Because Flettner ventilators are wind-powered, whenever the vehicle is in motion (or if it’s an especially windy day out), the unit spins & generates air movement within the vehicle. According to Flettner, the ventilator can effectively lower each truck’s interior temperature anywhere from ten to a full fifteen degrees! And UPS trucks aren’t the only vehicles you’ll find Flettner ventilators, either; if you were to look closely, you’d likely also see them on other cargo trucks & Amazon delivery vans.
If you’d like to get your hands on a Flettner ventilator that’s already been installed on a UPS truck…well, sorry but that ain’t gonna happen. UPS actually forbids the resale of any of their fleet vehicles. Where do they go & what happens to them then? Well, older models are either reassigned to lighter internal company service duty, or they ultimately get scrapped. But if you’d like your very own Flettner ventilator, sans the UPS truck, you’re in luck! They’re actually available online through a variety of distributors.
If you’d like an answer to your very own Mundane Mystery, however, just send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!
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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s The Difference Between Black Pepper & White Pepper?
Black pepper can be found on just about every table in both homes & restaurants…but did you know that that pepper shaker is hiding a secret? What we call “pepper” isn’t actually from a pepper, nor is it actually black (at least, not in its natural state). And that’s just black pepper. Could the same be true for white pepper, too? What are black pepper & white pepper really? And how are they different from one another?
Black & white pepper look different…they taste different…they’re used for different reasons…but they do have some things in common. They both start out as berries from the same plant, the Piper nigrum, a plant that originally hails from India. To get black peppercorns, farmers harvest small berries from the Piper nigrum when they’re green & not yet ripe, then they cook & dry them until the berries’ outer layers shrivel up & darken. White peppercorns, on the other hand, are totally ripe berries from the same plant as “black” peppercorns, but they get soaked in water & fermented so that the inner seeds separate from their skins before the seed portion gets dried, which ultimately produces “white” peppercorns.
Those two different processing techniques draw out very different flavors from the berries: black pepper is bold, floral, and spicy; white pepper is mellower & has a more earthy flavor. Their uses are different, too: black pepper is a staple in most of our American foods, while white pepper is favored more in Asian foods. White pepper does get used in European recipes, though. However, it’s usually used mostly for its visual characteristics. (One example would be French chefs using white pepper in creamy sauces, mashed potatoes, and other whitish dishes so that black specks won’t be visible in their fancy food.)
White pepper & black pepper are very similar, while also being very different spices. But you can successfully use one in place of the other in most recipes with tasty results. That’s exactly what I like to do, and I encourage you to do so, as well. Because, hey…as they say: “Variety is the spice of life!”
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio), or shoot me an email at [email protected].
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