Perusing the latest issue of Cook's Country, a
publication I quite enjoy, I was astounded when I came to the "When Things Go Wrong in the Kitchen" section at
the back of the magazine. It is intended to be funny, but what it really shows is that people need to learn when to
throw things away. No matter how thrifty you are or how closely you need to watch your wallet, sometimes it is simply
best to throw away your mistake and start over from scratch. A good time to consider this action is when food is
burnt, bad or if you have been eating leftovers for more than a couple of days.
Witness the following incidents, all harvested from the kitchen disaster stories in Cook's Country:
- A woman wanted to make homemade noodles the way her grandmother did. The recipe looked like it would not make enough, so she added to it until it was several times the original size. She and her husband ate noodles for more than two weeks and it was years before they wanted to eat them again.
Why did they keep eating? Did they feel the need to punish themselves? Eggs and flour are not so expensive as to cause bankruptcy from throwing some away.
- A woman added far too much saffron to a chowder she was attempting and produced something smelly and barely edible. She "forced" herself to eat it for supper and to have a "big bowl" for lunch the next day.
Again - why? Eat cereal for two days, if need be to compensate for the cost, but there is no need to torture yourself.
- The worst story by far is about a woman whose daughter added 3 tablespoons of salt to a recipe instead of 3 teaspoons, three times the required amount. She "hated to waste all that batter" so she tripled all the other ingredients and made 24 dozen cinnamon rolls, the majority of which were given away.
Here's some cooking math that may help this woman in the future:
1 ruined batch of dough 1 new batch of dough
= 2 batches of dough
3 x 1 ruined batch of dough = 3 batches of dough.
Congratulations. You have now used
more dough that you would have if you had thrown away the flawed dough, not to mention the fact that little money was
"saved" by giving away several dozen batches of cinnamon rolls. Next time, just start again. Your
"thrifty" sensibilities may be shocked, but at least the logical portion of your brain will prove that it
continues to function.
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