Solar baker: Thai street food vendor cooks chicken with sunlight By AFP, adapted by Newsela staff on 05.15.17 Word Count 326 Level 390L
Food vendor Sila Sutharat turns the grates on a cart loaded with chicken. He cooks the meat with rays of sun that are reflected on an oversized mirror panel. Mr. Sutharat has been selling cooked chicken in Thailand for 20 years. He wears a mask to protect his face and eyes from the heat and light. Photo from: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images.
Sila Sutharat is a cook. He lives in Thailand, a country in Asia. Mr. Sutharat came up with a new way to cook chicken. He does not use an oven or grill. He uses the sun! Mr. Sutharat made a large wall. It is made up of almost 1,000 mirrors. Each day, he moves the mirrors. They point sunlight onto rows of chickens. The chickens cook in the heat of the sun. At first, people thought this was strange. They said "cooking chicken like this" was not possible, Mr. Sutharat said. Soon, they changed their minds.
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Maybe Better Than An Oven The mirrors reflect the sunlight. This creates heat. It gets as hot as an oven. Baking the chickens in sunshine does not take long. A chicken cooks in just 12 minutes. Mr. Sutharat has made chicken for 20 years. In the past, he mostly cooked for local people. Then, videos of his sun cooker were posted online. The videos were very popular. Many people saw them. Now, people come from all over the country to try his chicken.
Decreasing Cost And Pollution Mr. Sutharat came up with the idea in 1997. He was standing next to a bus. He could feel the heat reflect off of it. Mr. Sutharat thought he could use that heat. Thailand is very sunny. And sunlight is free! He thought he could save money by cooking with the sun. Using the sun "also decreases pollution," Sutharat said. Most people burn gas or charcoal for heat to cook. Burning these makes air pollution. The sun's heat does not.
Chicken Is Better With The Sun Mr. Sutharat cooks a lot. He cooks around 40 chickens each day. He says his chicken is better now. It is softer. Also, it cooks more evenly. "We've been eating here for a long time," said a woman named Thanyarat Kaewpaleuk. She is a customer. She said the chicken tastes very good. "It's not burned," she said.
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