Most of us will say them out loud, but don't really know where they came from, or if they are even true: "The fridge smells? Let's stick a box of baking soda in there!" or "Too bad that cooking wine or liquor will cook away the alcohol."
The Kitchen Myths page has a number of these old wives' tales, and explains why many of them are false, pointing to references like On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee and the USDA databases. Some of the myths that are exposed:
- Does searing meat really sear in the juices?
- Do lobsters scream when you drop them into boiling water?
- Are gas stoves better than electric stoves?
- Can you really not fry in olive oil?
- Will keeping the avocado pit in the guacamole keep it from turning brown?
6-06-2006 @3:47PM Berkana said... I used the baking soda trick in my fridge, and it worked great. My roommate left a bowl of chicken parts in there until they decomposed. The fridge had a sharp stench of rotting flesh, so I put three Arm and Hammer baking soda boxes in there--the kind that has the fabric walls on the side specially designed to increase surface area exposed to fridge stench--and the odors were absorbed surprisingly quickly. I haven't had any fridge odor issues since then.
Maybe the baking soda thing doesn't work if you just crack open a box, but increasing the surface area sure seems to do a lot of good.
Reply
6-06-2006 @4:58PM Rhonda Nettles said... Although baking soda does work if you use more than one but i have found that a shaker of fresh coffee ground's work's much better and it only takes one and can be much cheaper since most of us already have coffee or buy coffee when we grocery shop.
Reply
6-06-2006 @5:47PM Lisa said... Hmmm, I have to take issue with some of things listed. Baking soda does work to eliminate odors - I've done it and it worked great. The site says milk makes better scrambled eggs than water. Not in my opinion. The milk makes the eggs worse. My eggs always turn out light, moist and fluffy when water is added. And that line about not being able to bake anything in the microwave...what a bunch of baloney! I've baked several items that have turned out wonderful including some great chocolate chip cookie bar. Great when you want a baked goody in the summer but don't want to heat up the kitchen.
Reply
6-06-2006 @7:46PM b. brown said... baking soda does help with orders it even works in your ice chest when you forget to clean it after its been used.
Reply
6-06-2006 @8:06PM Dr Rich Byrne said... good job.
Reply
6-06-2006 @8:08PM Dr Rich Byrne said... Salt added to food before it is placed on the table detracts from the quality. Keep the salt on the table, not on the stove.
Reply
6-06-2006 @10:33PM Linda said... Salt is hygroscopic - it draws any available moisture to it until it reaches saturation. No myth here. Why do you think people with elevated blood pressure are encourged to avoid salt? Where's there salt, there's water. It's physics you should have learned in college or from talking to any one who cooks Kosher. What matters is the length of time between between salting and cooking. If the meat sits with salt on it for any length of time, it will draw out moisture - blood, natural fluids and any water added during processing. If you salt the meat and cook it right away, there's little chance of moisture loss.
Reply
6-06-2006 @11:47PM David said... What, no mention of the last item? Forget about how you boil the water, how can you talk about making a good cup of tea when you're using tea bags? Isn't that like talking about making a good cup of coffee with canned, pre-ground Folgers? Or a good cookie from a frozen, plastic tube of store-bought dough?
Seriously, some of the items were interesting, and the sources were well cited. Others were simply anecdotal, if not simple opinion.
Reply
6-07-2006 @12:33AM Eric said... I started reading through these, and was thinking oh, that's good to know, or at least interesting, until I got to risotto in the microwave. That really lost a lot of credibility for me.
Reply
6-07-2006 @1:40PM Charles Fiedler said... The site has pleny of individual observations with very little research. Take the baking soda absorbing smells in the freezer myth: It's considered false by the web-author because baking soda is a "very poor at absorbing odors." The reference cited leads to a k-12 'ask a scientist' website for *kids*. Where's the scientific study?
Maybe baking soda works, exactly as the reference says, by absorbing moisture in the freezer, not the smell itself.
Reply