Leftover Crystals

In preparation for Thanksgiving I was riffling through my freezer and discovered a leftovers container that was long forgotten. I vaguely recall I was going to use that last bite ages ago. Just before I cleaned up the storage container I decided that forgetting actually turned out to be a thing of beauty. One woman’s freezer burned leftovers are another woman’s science experiment!

Looking at the layers upon layers upon layers of ice crystals (yes, I forgot about it for a LONG time) it reminded me of my sixth grade science experiment, “How does light affect sugar crystal formation?” Based on my sixth grade results, I don’t think the dark freezer made a significant impact on how fast the crystals grew, but it did make an unexpected natural sculpture.

What is freezer burn?

Freezer burn is when a frozen food is affected by oxidation and dehydration caused by air. This explains why my “last-bite” serving accumulated so many ice crystals. It was an itty bitty amount of food in an oversized container, which left a lot of air. Let that be a lesson to me, to wrap my leftover more tightly and not expose as much of them to the open air,

I’ve always enjoyed going to the mineral and gemstone display in museums, even though they aren’t generally considered as riveting as the dinosaur fossils.  I like to think it’s because the amazing science of gemstones isn’t as obvious. It’s what’s going on at the molecular level that makes materials like crystals amazing. At the molecular level of water, geometry comes into play and the atoms bond together in a hexagonal pattern. Like so:

Freezer burn has such a bad connotation. Rather than thinking about my discovery as a freezer-burned leftover, I choose to see it as a stunning, one-of-a-kind crystal sculpture. My forgotten food is an ephemeral piece of art…that is now washed down my sink.

Update: See more ice formations from my freezer HERE.