Party Food... The Three Little Pigs Discover Structural Engineering
Most people are familiar with the story of the three little pigs and the houses of straw, twigs and bricks that were built, the only house surviving the ‘huff and puff’ of the wicked wolf being the brick house. Re-create the storyline by taking some Twiglets (for the twig house), bake some cheese straws (for the straw house) and some cheese and herb scone slabs (for the brick house) and recall the lesson in structural engineering discovered by the pigs! The best bit is that you can eat all the houses afterwards.
Marzipan Pigs
Pack of marzipan (at room temperature)
Red food colouring (paste food colouring from a cake decoration shop is best)
Take a lump of marzipan and add a small amount of red paste colouring, knead to mix the colouring through the marzipan. Adding more colouring if the ‘pink’ is too pale. Shape marzipan into a pig – not forgetting the curly tail! Repeat until you have 3 pigs.
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Cheese Straws
* 110 (4 oz) plan flour
* 55 g (2 oz) butter or margarine
* 55 g (2 oz) grated Cheddar cheese
* 1 egg yolk
* Seasoning
Sieve flour, add seasoning, rub in butter, add cheese and bind with egg yolk. Add a little water if necessary to bind. Roll out pastry until c 1.0 cm thick. Cut into narrow fingers approximately 8 cm in length. Lift onto a lightly greased baking tin and brush lightly with egg or milk. Bake in a hot oven for 10 – 12 minutes. Cool for 2-3 minutes on tin then lift onto a cooling tray with a palette knife.
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Twiglet House
No baking required! Purchase Twiglets and use your creative skills to fashion a house. Good luck! (If you get really frustrated then a dab of marmite here and there might help hold things together, though that is slightly missing the point.)
Cheese and Herb Scone Bricks
* 2 tsps baking powder (or if using plain flour, double the amount of baking powder)
* 30 – 60 g (1-2 oz) butter or margarine
* 90 g (3 oz) grated Cheddar cheese
* Teaspoon mixed dried herbs
* Seasoning
* Milk to mix
Sieve flour, add bicarbonate and seasoning, rub in butter then add grated cheese. Mix to a soft rolling consistency with milk. Roll out until 2cm thick. Cut into slabs approximately 5 x 3 cm. Bake in a hot oven for about 10 minutes – to test if cooked press firmly at the sides, should be firm to touch when cooked. Cool then slice in half, butter and put back together.
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Structural engineering is a speciality discipline within civil engineering that deals with the designs of structures such as buildings. Structural engineers are responsible for safety of the designs (in this case to ensure that the houses won’t blow over with a bit of huffing and puffing!) and the creative and efficient use of funds and materials.
Despite the 3 little pigs experience, timber can be an excellent building material. Wood is strong in tension and compression although it can be weak in bending. Much depends on the quality, treatment of wood and type of wood supplied. On the down-side, the current cost of timber is high and there are issues with sustainability. The little pig who built his house from twigs was obviously not conscientious enough to find the right type and quality of wood combined with poor construction skills – he should have done better!
As for the straw house, straw is actually coming into it’s own as a building material. Straw is an excellent insulator, it’s relatively cheap and it’s a way of using a secondary waste material from grain production. By using straw bales or straw particleboard panels rather than bundles of straw, the strength of the building material is improved. If little pig number two were building his house in 2008 he may have done a lot better!
In the story the brick house came out best and bricks are certainly well proven for building houses. They are of a size that makes them easy to handle and laid properly they produce strong walls. Bricks don’t decay, require no paint, are fire are vermin resistant; they provide good thermal and sound insulation and are aesthetically pleasing. Little pig number three would have made an excellent structural engineer!
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