The Best Interesting Random Facts
Microwave energy is absorbed primarily by water in the food. The waterlogged canned peas and their surrounding liquid absorb microwaves at pretty much the same rate and will therefore get hot more or less equally. When the water begins to boil, the peas are at about the same temperature, whereupon you undoubtedly consider them to […]
I don’t think you mean boiling point, because in spite of the poetic and sadistic appeal of the expression “boiled in oil,” oil doesn’t boil. Long before it becomes hot enough to think about bubbling, a cooking oil will decompose, breaking down into disagreeable chemicals and carbonized particles that will assault your taste buds with […]
Dem bones are an essential ingredient in making a soup, stock, or stew, every bit as essential as the meat, vegetables, and seasonings. Their purpose may not be obvious, however, if we think of them as hard, nonreactive mineral matter. Yes, their structural material is mineral: calcium phosphates, to be specific. But calcium phosphates don’t […]
Yup, your lasagne is actually eating holes in the metal. (No reflection on your cooking.) Aluminum is what chemists call an active metal, easily attacked by acids such as the citric and other organic acids in tomatoes. In fact, you shouldn’t cook tomato sauce or other acidic foods in aluminum pots because they can dissolve […]
Unlike their electromagnetic cousins the X rays, which are of much higher frequency and energy, microwaves can’t penetrate food more than an inch or so; their energy is completely absorbed and turned into heat within that region. That’s one reason for the “cover and wait” injunction of recipes and “smart” ovens: It takes time for […]
A calorie is a much broader concept than just heat; it’s an amount of any kind of energy. We could measure the energy of a speeding Mack truck in calories, if we wanted to. Energy is whatever makes things happen; call it “oomph” if you wish. It comes in many forms: physical motion (think Mack […]
The words tartar and tartare come to us from two different directions. “Tartar” or “Tatar” was the Persian name for Genghis Khan’s horde of Mongols who stormed through Asia and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. The Tartars were viewed by Europeans as being, shall we say, culturally challenged, or at the very least politically […]
Saltines, Wheat Thins, Triscuits, Ritz Crackers, grahams, you name it, there’s hardly a cracker anywhere that doesn’t have a pattern of little holes in it. The makers of matzos, the unleavened flatbread of the Jewish Passover, seem to have gone hog wild (you should excuse the expression) on perforations. Matzos are much hole-ier than secular […]
Wash them properly and don’t use them for unintended purposes. After being used to brush on an egg wash or melted butter, a pastry brush becomes gummy and rancid unless you wash it thoroughly before putting it away. Wet it with hot water and work up a lather by swishing it around on a cake […]
Acidity often gets a bum rap. Maybe it’s because of all the television commercials for drugs designed to control heartburn and acid reflux. But the acid in our stomachs (hydrochloric acid) is thousands of times stronger than any acid you’ll find in coffee. It’s only when the acid gets out of the stomach, splashing up […]
The term curry originates from the Tamil word kari, meaning sauce. Today, curry can describe a number of spicy sauces for meats and vegetables usually eaten with rice. Many spices are dried, roasted and blended together in different combinations to make curry. Curry powder is a special blend of spices used to create the unique […]
The custom of giving someone “a little something extra” permeates all societies in one form or another. In restaurants and taxis, we routinely pay, in the form of a tip, more than the bill requires. And for reasons I have never been able to fathom, employees of many corporations, but regretfully not of universities, are […]
Yes, but it has been thoroughly washed out before the grits ever get near your breakfast plate. The word lye is related to the Latin for wash, and originally referred to the strong alkaline solution obtained by soaking, or washing, wood ashes in water. (The alkaline material in wood ashes is potassium carbonate, and because […]
Wheat flour is naturally slightly yellowish because it contains carotenoid pigments, natural yellow and orange compounds found in many fruits, vegetables, and grains. Carrots’ famous orange color, carotene, is the mother of them all. But most people are less color tolerant than you and don’t like their flour to be yellow. The major exception is […]
Beneath the surface of Hutchinson, Kansas, and thousands of square miles of its environs lies an enormous deposit of a precious rock-like mineral called halite. There, several huge mining operations extract almost 1 million tons per year, and that’s less than one-half percent of the world’s annual halite production. What do we do with all […]
I’m with you. Why overnight? Are we to believe that daylight somehow interferes with the marinating process? What if it’s only two o’clock in the afternoon when we arrive at the critical point in the recipe? How early can “overnight” begin? If we do leave it overnight, must we proceed with the recipe the moment […]
French onion soup tastes nothing like raw or fried onions. It’s all in the different chemical reactions that take place at room temperature, at the wet temperature of boiling water, and at the high and dry temperature of frying. Raw garlic and onions have little or no aroma until cutting or chewing breaks open their […]
They should be, but they really don’t have to be. That step is often skipped. As they arrive from the ocean or the fish market, live clams generally need to be purged. When they were snatched from their snug little beds in the sand, they pulled in their siphons and clamped their shells together tightly, […]
The orange stuff on Cheetos is a combination of various dyes and seasonings, and it’s the only part of Cheetos that has any cheese whatsoever in it. Like similar products, the main part of these “cheese” coated chip products is not cheese but a cornmeal concoction. The cornmeal, with whey and oil added, is mixed […]
Is this a new way of making heat for cooking, after fire, microwaves, and induction ranges? No. The so-called light oven makes heat in pretty much the same way your electric range does: through the electrical resistance-heating of metal. Light ovens have been in specialized commercial use since about 1993 but are now being produced […]
There can be no single rule that covers all the foods we consume, an almost infinite number of combinations of thousands of different proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and minerals that make up our omnivorous diet. “Going bad” can refer to the effects of bacteria, molds, and yeasts; heat; oxidation from exposure to air; or enzymes in […]
Heavy cream contains a higher percentage of milk fat (usually called butterfat, because butter can be made from it) than light cream does: 36 to 40 percent fat in heavy whipping cream versus only 18 to 30 percent in light cream. And, if you’re interested, the heavy cream can contain up to twice as much […]
Vinegar has been known for thousands of years. No one even had to make it in the first place, because it actually makes itself. Wherever there happens to be some sugar or alcohol lying around, vinegar is on the way. Any chemist will tell you without a moment’s hesitation that vinegar is a solution of […]
Oils are hydrogenated, that is, hydrogen atoms are forced into their molecules under pressure to make them more saturated, because saturated fats are thicker, more solid and less liquid, than unsaturated fats. The hydrogen atoms fill in hydrogen-poor gaps (Techspeak: double bonds, which are more rigid than single bonds) in the oil molecules, and that […]
The name “water filter” is misleading. The word filtered literally means only that the water has passed through a medium containing tiny holes or fine passageways that screen out suspended particles. When traveling in a country whose water supply is suspect and you ask a waiter whether the water is filtered, an affirmative reply may […]
Cloves are probably the strongest of all aromatic spices, containing up to 20 percent of an intense, sweetly pungent essential oil. Originating, appropriately enough, in the Spice Islands, now part of Indonesia, they are the dried flower buds of the tropical evergreen tree Syzygium arornaticurn. Dried clove buds have a stem and a head, a […]
First, loosen up your wallet, high quality doesn’t come cheap. The ideal frying pan will distribute the burner’s heat uniformly over its surface, transfer it quickly to the food, and respond promptly to changes in heat settings. That boils down to two qualities: thickness and heat conductivity. Look for a thick pan made out of […]
Spam isn’t that bad, there’s nothing strange in the meat even though it’s cheap. It’s pork shoulder that’s been chopped, spiced, and formed into loaves. Every meat packer runs into the problem that some parts of an animal are more popular than others. For the George A. Hormel Company in 1937, the unwanted part was […]
Sodium aluminum sulfate and several other aluminum compounds are listed by the FDA as GRAS: Generally Regarded as Safe. About twenty years ago, one study found increased levels of aluminum in the brains of deceased Alzheimer’s victims. Ever since then, suspicions have been circulating that aluminum, whether in food or water or dissolved from aluminum […]
Marinating, from the Latin mare, meaning sea, is the soaking of meat, poultry, or fish in a liquid concoction prior to cooking it, in an effort to improve either its flavor or its tenderness. But for a number of reasons, there can be no set rules for marinating. The amount of soaking time depends on […]
Microwave ovens were the first new way of making heat for cooking in more than a million years. Well, now there’s a second one: magnetic induction heating. Magnetic induction has been used for the past decade or so in some European and Japanese food service kitchens, and more recently in commercial American kitchens. They are […]
Microwave-heated water isn’t as hot as kettle-heated water, even though it may look as if it’s boiling. Water for tea must be boiling hot in order to extract all the color and flavor. Caffeine, for example, won’t dissolve in water that’s much cooler than 175°F. That’s why the teapot, or if you’re a bag-at-a-time brewer, […]
Many cookbooks assert that all or virtually all of the alcohol “burns off” during cooking (what they mean is that it evaporates; it won’t burn unless you light it). The standard “explanation,” when there is one, is that alcohol boils at 173°F, while water doesn’t boil until 212°F, and therefore the alcohol will boil off […]
There is only one plant, Camellia sinensis and a couple of hybrids thereof, whose leaves can be steeped in hot water to make real tea. They may have different names, depending, among other things, on where they were grown. Some of those “tea” bags you may be offered, such as chamomile, for example, do not […]
Unfortunately, there can be no dependable rule of thumb because herbs differ so much from one to another. But the following considerations may give you a few clues. Remember that it’s not the amounts of fresh or dried vegetable matter that count in flavoring, but the amounts of essential oils they contain, because that’s where […]
At the fish market, select one lively, tail-flipping, claw-raising lobster per person. You pick up a lobster by grasping its back, behind the head. If it droops when picked up, forget it and come back another day; it’s not fresh. Take the lobsters home in a container that allows lots of breathing space and keeps […]
