Food and Related Myths or Highly Questionable Beliefs

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stringer said:
Here are a few I encounter often:

Raw chickens should be rinsed.

Metal can never go in the microwave.

It is best to pour grease down the drain.

Veggies should be coated in oil before roasting.

You should leave the root end of the onion on to help hold it together when you cut it.

Extra lean ground turkey is healthier than extra lean ground beef.
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Oh, those are good! Wait, why not oil vegetables before roasting? Don't you get a more leathery skin without oil? Been ages since I tried
 
ian said:
Oh, those are good! Wait, why not oil vegetables before roasting? Don't you get a more leathery skin without oil? Been ages since I tried
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The best way is to roast halfway with just enough oil on the pan to prevent sticking. Get a lot of moisture out, then add oil and seasoning to finish. The result is less soggy and greasy and more brown and toasty. Oiling first traps moisture inside inhibiting Mallard reactions
 
stringer said:
The best way is to roast halfway with just enough oil on the pan to prevent sticking. Get a lot of moisture out, then add oil and seasoning to finish. The result is less soggy and greasy and more brown and toasty. Oiling first traps moisture inside inhibiting Mallard reactions
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Heard! Will try.
 
Jovidah said:
I think it's really important to realize that a LOT of the myths; even in this thread, do have a grain of truth in them, or at least stem from something that made sense at one point.

For example:
-I can totally see how 'cold water boils faster' is at least linked to the Mpemba effect - which is similarly counterintuitive.
-Letting meat rest on the counter before cooking can actually have utility in that you lose less heat when tossing it in the pan; this can lead to a better outcome, especially on crappier pans and consumer level stoves.
-Wooden cutting boards CAN be very unsanitary if improperly utilized and maintained.
-Adding salt to yeast might actually kill it, but only in higher concentrations; which might happen if you're for whatever reason keeping just the salt and yeast together in the same bowl during mise-en-place.
-Heating honey doesn't make it poisonous but at high enough temperatures will kill pasteurize it; whether that's a good or a bad thing is up for debate.
-A lot of food rules, recipes and preparations made more sense in the past when food safety wasn't as good as it is now, and certain ingredients were very different from how they are now. Sifting flour for example was far more mandatory in the past when it was a more regular occurence to find small insects in the flour.

There's also a lot of common ones where the explanation might be wrong but the advice is generally sound, for example:
-Searing meat doesn't 'seal in the juice' but it does lead to a more flavorful end-product.
-Oiling pasta MIGHT make sense if you just leave the pasta to sit in a bowl or something after draining.
-You don't need liters of water to boil pasta, but the reason it's recommended is that it often makes the process more idiot proof and easier to make timing recommendations.

And I do actually think sharper knives are safer. Because with a sharp knife I barely use any pressure... and the knive goes where I intend it to go. Whenever I cut myself the cuts are small, superficial, clean and heal fast. On the contrary with a blunt knife I put far more pressure, the knife tends to not go where I want it to and there's a far higher risk of stab injuries, cutting myself since the knife went somewhere I didn't intend it to, and there's far more pressure behind it so whenever I hit something the damage tends to be worse.
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I think this is one of the better and more logical explanations in this thread. The issue is though, when some people are convinced by those WITHOUT understanding the underlying reasons... It's just a maxim they grew up with, and don't care if they are wrong or not...

One about wooden cutting board is an excellent example. Someone who oils theirs regularly and takes good overall is right... but I have seen many who have gouges or warping in theirs.

I oil pasta all the time... but not during cook, after I drain it, I add table spoon for left overs and then when I reheat it/etc, it's much easier...
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
I just mentioned this to my wife (oil in the water) and she shuffled off mumbling something about I was wrong and it does work.

These long-held beliefs can have deep roots.
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I always thought adding olive oil to pasta water would keep the sauce from sticking to the pasta?
 
Michi said:
I agree. Since I have really sharp knives, I nick myself a lot more often than I used to. Part of the reason is that, previously, all my knives were Wüsthof with a full bolster. What gets me on my Japanese knives is usually the heel. One careless move to pick up something near the knife is enough. That heel is forever lurking to get me.

Not to mention my poor dish towels.
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Omg….So true.
 
Racheski said:
Yeah I'm calling BS on this one until I see some science to back it up (I didn't see any studies after a quick Google search). I believe you are referring to the process of creating a forcemeat "protein mesh" which has nothing to do with aligning muscle fibers parallel to each other. The protein mesh is a matrix of salt, water, fat, and protein that is created when salt solubilizes protein in the muscle cells during mixing.
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Hmmm… Now that I think about it, maybe that really is BS. I've heard this preached so many times (and from experts), that I just took it as gospel. But then, I also heard it preached for decades that you have to put oil in your pasta water…

I'm not sure I'm up to conducting an experiment to see who is right. But I think I will stop spreading that particular piece of wisdom from now on, seeing that you have so convincingly planted nagging doubts in my mind :)
 
Birds Nest soup is not for Dong-Health or performance. it helps provide success and good fortune. that's why they serve it at wedding banquets..

wait,,...maybe it does help boners. i think the hot new wife does that. they should serve it at the 7 year wedding anniversary. . with a big plate of oysters. :)
 
Jovidah said:
I think it's really important to realize that a LOT of the myths; even in this thread, do have a grain of truth in them, or at least stem from something that made sense at one point.

For example:
-I can totally see how 'cold water boils faster' is at least linked to the Mpemba effect - which is similarly counterintuitive.
-Letting meat rest on the counter before cooking can actually have utility in that you lose less heat when tossing it in the pan; this can lead to a better outcome, especially on crappier pans and consumer level stoves.
-Wooden cutting boards CAN be very unsanitary if improperly utilized and maintained.
-Adding salt to yeast might actually kill it, but only in higher concentrations; which might happen if you're for whatever reason keeping just the salt and yeast together in the same bowl during mise-en-place.
-Heating honey doesn't make it poisonous but at high enough temperatures will kill pasteurize it; whether that's a good or a bad thing is up for debate.
-A lot of food rules, recipes and preparations made more sense in the past when food safety wasn't as good as it is now, and certain ingredients were very different from how they are now. Sifting flour for example was far more mandatory in the past when it was a more regular occurence to find small insects in the flour.

There's also a lot of common ones where the explanation might be wrong but the advice is generally sound, for example:
-Searing meat doesn't 'seal in the juice' but it does lead to a more flavorful end-product.
-Oiling pasta MIGHT make sense if you just leave the pasta to sit in a bowl or something after draining.
-You don't need liters of water to boil pasta, but the reason it's recommended is that it often makes the process more idiot proof and easier to make timing recommendations.

And I do actually think sharper knives are safer. Because with a sharp knife I barely use any pressure... and the knive goes where I intend it to go. Whenever I cut myself the cuts are small, superficial, clean and heal fast. On the contrary with a blunt knife I put far more pressure, the knife tends to not go where I want it to and there's a far higher risk of stab injuries, cutting myself since the knife went somewhere I didn't intend it to, and there's far more pressure behind it so whenever I hit something the damage tends to be worse.
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-You don't need liters of water to boil pasta,
Depends on how much pasta you are cooking. More pasta + less water = starch soup + sticky pasta.
 
M1k3 said:
Cold water boils faster.
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That might be like the RAF claiming carrots made for better night vision. Better results through a white lie. Really hard water from a hot water tank will make food taste bad. Cold hard water less so.
 
Michi said:
Adding salt and yeast to a dough at the same time will kill the yeast.
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Jovidah said:
-Adding salt to yeast might actually kill it, but only in higher concentrations; which might happen if you're for whatever reason keeping just the salt and yeast together in the same bowl during mise-en-place.
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Salt will retard yeast / sourdough starter activity, even in the concentration necessary for bread. It won't inhibit growth. The latter is self-evident as you can add salt to bread. The former you can test by doing 12 hour autolyze. If you use non chlorinated water and do not use salt, you have a good chance of getting your autolyze to proof if the conditions are warm enough (>70F). If you use chlorinated water and no salt, you get less activity, but still some. I know this because I've made weak bread because I used water I left out for a few days for a 12 hr autolyze and weird/smelly bread when I didn't use salt in the autolyze... 🤣

So, this has a kernel of truth, but people do take it way too seriously. Even bread cookbooks often say to add salt like an hour or two after you add the levain. I guess if you're a bakery and every minute counts this matters, but for a home baker it is just as easy to add salt earlier.
 
In my experience with the pasta and oiling it debate:

Oiling the water reduces foaming/boiling over, like @stringer said earlier. Makes no difference to how good the sauce will stick to the pasta.

Oiling pasta that you've cooked halfway and will go in the water again before serving doesn't make a difference.

Oiling cooked pasta to then add to your sauce, or, (insert record scratch noise) if you are going to commit a sin and just ladle the sauce over the pasta 🤷‍♂️ it does make a difference.
 
simona said:
Why would you want the sauce not to stick to the pasta? Surely you would end with a pile of pasta sitting on a puddle of sauce?
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I want the sauce to stick to the pasta. That is why I do NOT add olive oil to pasta.

I use 4 qts water to a pound of pasta.
 
The only time I add oil to pasta is if I cook too much and save for the next day (yes, I’m a savage). However, I do from time to time pour some oil into the water when I’m unfocused due to old habit, but it’s really a waste.
 
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