You know your garlic is old when it starts trying to give birth to a new generation of garlic. The very center of a clove of garlic is called the germ. And when this germ sprouts a little green stem, it means that the garlic has started to germinate. Traditional cooking wisdom tells us to remove … Read more
Is it possible to let meat decay into something delicious? The answer lies in the science of aging, a process that is often misunderstood as simply letting beef sit in the fridge. The first thing that we need to understand, before I answer the question of whether you can age beef at home, is the … Read more
When I was a child, in the 1970’s, we were told that if we swallowed our chewing gum, it would remain in our stomach for seven years. In colloquial terms, this means that people thought that it takes seven years to digest a piece of chewing gum. This belief had probably been around from before … Read more
When I was in basic training, it wasn’t long before someone whispered to me that “there’s saltpeter in the water.” I didn’t know what saltpeter was but I decided not to show my ignorance on that score. Instead, I asked why there would be saltpeter in our water (we were required to down two glasses … Read more
Potatoes aren’t sweet at all. So how in the world did a potato like the sweet potato come to exist? Well, sweet potatoes aren’t really potatoes. Potatoes are members of the Nightshade family, while sweet potatoes are members of the Morning Glory family. So, they’re allowed to be sweet without owing any apologies to potatoes. … Read more
For a long time, a common recommendation was to use a copper bowl to whip egg whites into a foam. In fact, special bowls were made just for this practice and it was long a part of French tradition. This is no longer recommended as often today, sometimes because there is fear of copper contamination, … Read more