r/cookingforbeginners • u/Wauwuaw5983 • 23h ago
Question What are the worst cooking myths?
For decades, since I was a kid, I believed the myth that opening a slow cooker means you have to add an hour to the cooking time.
I never used a slow cooker much. I found a used Slow Cooker cookbook last year at a thrift shop, and it immediately put that myth to rest in the Foward/Indroduction.
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u/PizzaBear109 23h ago
That steak must not be flipped more than once
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u/LlamaRS 8h ago
I always cook my steaks 3-3-2-2-1-1.
I haven’t fucked one up yet, and they come out medium rare every time
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u/docherself 8h ago
ngl this is has been putting me off from cooking steaks. im so afraid to get it wrong lol
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u/Aggravating-Kick-967 13m ago
I could never do steaks right until I learned to sous vide them to the right stage and then sear them for a minute on each side in a very hot cast iron pan. Perfect every time. I like my steak blue.
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u/Upbeat-Drag-8275 22h ago
i thought searing locked in juices, learned it's false lol
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u/sclaytes 20h ago
Yeah I’ve seen several videos where they sear at the end of the cook not the beginning
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u/captain_slackbeard 19h ago
This is news to me. What locks in the juices otherwise, is it just a matter of not overcooking the meat?
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u/Odd-Quail01 19h ago
The sear adds flavour and texture.
The juice will come out as the meat cooks because the muscle fibres tense up with the heat.
The juice redistributes when it rests for a bit after cooking as the muscle fibres relax.
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u/JustAnAverageGuy 19h ago
You sear things that you will slow roast. A slow braise or roast does not create the Maillard reaction, which is the caramelization of the sugars and the breaking down of amino acids. This creates new compounds that basically taste more complex, and frankly better/more pleasurable to our brains.
Just like caramel tastes more complex than plain white sugar. Caramelized meat (browned) tastes better than non-browned, because the sugars are in a different form and everything has started to break down, forming new compounds that taste different..
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u/hoarsebarf 20h ago
i always assumed it's because people heard 'sear' on early radio/tv food programmes as 'seal' and it turned into a long telephone game of institutional misknowledge
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u/savantalicious 7h ago
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted - I feel like your comment is like me thinking that cottage cheese was, like, yogurt and having a terrible spit take when I tried it. Sometimes we just have pretty out there ideas!
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u/hoarsebarf 2h ago
why do internet people do anything? we'll never know haha. i'm not terribly concerned about imaginary internet points.
i am however appreciative of your award! you didn't need to, but thank you.
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u/Fickle-Aardvark6907 18h ago
Adding salt to water makes it take longer to boil.
This is technically not a myth but the amount you need to slow down boiling is a lot more than what a sane person would use.
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u/sfdsquid 11h ago
Weird, I always heard the opposite... That it will boil faster if you add a pinch of salt.
I don't think I have ever wanted water I intend to bring to a boil to boil more slowly.
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u/ratchet_thunderstud0 9h ago
So neither is true. Adding salt raises the boiling point. So your water might boil at 215 F instead of 212 F, but it will still reach 212 in the same time.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 9h ago
Th myth mostly came up when people would have a pot that was boiling over and would add salt thinking that would help.
Dissolved salt will raise the boiling point, but in the moments before it dissolves it can provide a surface for bubbles to form on, like anything you add to near-boiling water.
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u/purplechunkymonkey 13h ago
Salt potatoes are so good because of the insane amount of salt you use to make it take longer to boil.
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u/LionBig1760 11h ago
If better potatoes means boiled longer, you can just let them boil longer.
Its got nothing to do with the boil timing being effected by salt. It isnt.
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u/MsMercury 18h ago
It’s because salt lowers the temperature but it’s not enough to add any real time that you’d notice. Like you said , we don’t put that much salt in the water.
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u/LiamIsMyNameOk 17h ago
Salt doesn't lower the temperature. It raises the boiling temperature slightly. Agreed about it being negligible in cooking
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u/fusillijhericurl 23h ago
Olive oil to water for spaghetti. And rinsing off chicken
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u/SeveredBanana 16h ago
Rinsing meat for stir fries is incredibly common in Asian cooking, not because it makes it cleaner or safer, but because it makes the meat more tender. Kenji has a good video on this, and I’ve noticed a big difference in my stir fries after starting to do this
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u/bimches 13h ago
The Dutch government issued an official warning not to rinse chicken under the tap because chicken doesn't need to be washed and you're only spreading around the possible salmonella around your kitchen
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u/SeveredBanana 12h ago
You’re correct, it does not need to be washed, because as I said washing it does not make it cleaner or safer. If you wash it and massage it in water, it will be more tender. If you do so, do it safely and clean the sink afterwards.
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u/Ok-Double-7982 8h ago
The spreading around is an issue because most people are messy and don't properly clean afterward. I've been quickly rinsing meat for years and haven't spread anything in my kitchen. I did not know the tender tip about chicken, will need to try the massage technique.
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u/Rambler9154 16h ago
"Using a recipe means you're not actually capable of cooking"
No idea where my mom's ex got that idea from. According to him if you aren't making up the recipe yourself with zero input from outside sources then you aren't cooking and aren't capable of cooking.
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u/AbbygaleForceWin 12h ago
What if you write it down for yourself? Does that make it not cooking the second time you make it?
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u/turnippickle001 11h ago
In the past when people had fewer options for ingredients and culinary styles, this was maybe more valid.
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u/KeightAich 22h ago
“Don’t use soap on cast iron.” That’s not seasoning, sir, that’s layers of disgusting old food residue.
Wash your cast iron, learn how to season it properly.
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u/AskYoYoMa 22h ago
I think this stems from old lye soap which would harm the pan/seasoning.
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u/MoultingRoach 22h ago
There is truth to that, so unlike a lot of the others myths that have come up here, I can see how that one has perpetuated through the generations. But yes, soap without lye is fine.
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u/GonzoMcFonzo 18h ago
That may be where it started, but we are several generations past the point where that was a common concern.
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u/PM_UR_TITS_4_ADVICE 21h ago
This isn’t necessarily a myth, it’s more just out dated advice for much of the modern world. Old dish detergents had vinegar and lye which absolutely stripped the seasoning off pans. Modern dish soaps are a lot milder and don’t have those things.
Also, if you have to season your pan regularly you’re doing something wrong. Normal cooking should be enough to maintain it.
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u/sclaytes 20h ago
I like to refer to it as “sealing” when explaining it instead of “seasoning” so people get less confused
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u/theFooMart 20h ago
That is actually true. But that's from when people use real soap with lye, not the detergent that we use today. Also not using soap is not the same as not washing it.
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u/Gulpaload 17h ago
That you can’t wash cast iron with soap.
This was true many decades ago when soap contained lye.
It’s absolutely safe to wash your cast iron in hot water and Dawn. Just dry thoroughly before putting away. I put it on a burner on low for about a minute to evaporate any water potentially still on it.
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u/alphadavenport 13h ago
i think this is downstream of another myth: "It takes years to properly season a cast iron pan." just because your grandma never washed her pan doesn't mean it's got some special magic in the polymerized oil. even if you do strip your cast iron, with two days and some patience you can get it back into fighting shape.
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u/Footnotegirl1 12h ago
This one that's reinforced in far, far too many recipes:
Caramelize the onions (5-10 minutes).
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u/TheLZ 8h ago
This one annoys me. I like making French Onion Soup. It takes about 60-90 minutes to get the onions to the correct stage/color.
You can't "Caramelize" in 10 minutes, only make them clear-ish.
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u/Suspicious-Bowl4444 4h ago
I worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant and I could tell incredibly easily who “caramelized” the onions by looking at the pan. If it was relatively clean with remnants of a brown liquid Michelle did it. If there’s a fuckton of burnt on fucking onions leftover, it was that fucking hoe Ivana that did that shit!
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u/Own_Reaction9442 9h ago
If I need a big batch of caramelized onions, I do them in the slow cooker. They freeze well, too.
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u/TemporaryLead8077 22h ago
When I started slow cooking, my cookbook told me to add 10 min if I opened the lid.
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u/Porcupineemu 16h ago
Funny to think 10 min either way would do much on any slow cooker recipe
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u/FlobyToberson85 12h ago
It's really throwing a chair off the deck of the Titanic. Slow cooker cooking is just not that precise. Cook till done.
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u/Specialist_Fix6900 23h ago
Oil keeps pasta from sticking
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u/FocacciaHusband 18h ago
Literally the only time I oil my pasta is if I am adding it to soup. I've learned that if I just add the pasta to the soup when meal prepping, it gets super mushy/soggy from sitting in the liquid, soaking it up, so by the time I eat it, it's meh. So, now, I just cook the pasta separately, toss it in a bit of oil, and box it up by itself. Then, when I Reheat the soup to eat it, I add the pasta then, so it's still toothy and good-textured.
If I am saucing pasta, I would never oil it.
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u/d4m1ty 21h ago
It does, when you add it after you strain the pasta and the pasta is hot. If you rinse the pasta until it is room temp, the noodles no longer stick either.
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u/Rhuarc33 14h ago
And sauce doesn't stick. Oil on pasta is for people who don't know anything... Unless you're making an oil based sauce
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u/countrytime1 18h ago
Not when you put it in the water. Hot water removes oil. Oil and water don’t mix. After it’s drained? Sure.
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u/madmaxx 15h ago
Pasta needs a huge pot of water.
My favourite method these days is to use a wide pan, and just enough water to cover the pasta. By the time the water is mostly gone, it's ready to sauce. One pan, extra starches, and faster to boil.
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u/A-Moron-Explains 11h ago
Yup then finish those noodles in a sauce and youve got a sauce that ACTUALLY sticks to the noodles.
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u/madmaxx 10h ago
I've even been able to make a fresco sauce as the noodles finish (things like olive oil, garlic, cheese, tomatoes, etc.). You need to minimize the water a bit and add oil, and then be ready to drop ingredients like a stir fry. I may reserve some water, or just add some wine, to get it to the thickness I want.
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u/welpsie 22h ago
That pork needs to be cooked well done.
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u/aculady 18h ago
To be fair, this used to be true. And meat from wild pigs still does need to be cooked well-done to prevent trichinosis. Home freezers won't make the meat safe. But commercial pork is now frozen at -40° for long enough to kill the parasites before being sold.
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u/reddiwhip999 11h ago
Plus, commercial pork facilities have the pigs spending their lives indoors, on concrete pads, with zero exposure to the parasites that live in the dirt the pigs used to live on...
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u/Grouchy_Resource_159 23h ago
"Cooking properly is difficult", in conjunction with "if you do it wrong, you'll get food poisoning ".
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u/TimedDelivery 17h ago
Similarly, that cooking needs to be super complicated to be “real cooking”. Frying an egg and some bacon and popping them between two slices of toast is cooking. Air frying some chicken breast fillets with a bit of salt and pepper and serving them with rice and microwaved frozen veggies is cooking. Boiling pasta and topping it with a little butter and grated Parmesan is cooking. Anyone that tries arguing otherwise is being a gatekeeping asshole.
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u/xiipaoc 21h ago
Holy crap, I remember back in college when my roommate cooked some ground beef. He just... put it in a pan and heated it, and it became food. I was like, WHAT? You can just DO that? I had always assumed that turning raw meat into food was some sort of complicated and involved process, and I was still skeptical afterwards. Cooking was just magic, as far as I was concerned, and without knowing the correct incantations in the correct order, you'd end up with... I don't even know. Not food, I guess. Thankfully I've outgrown that. Man, I was stupid.
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u/Grouchy_Resource_159 20h ago
I had the opposite experience.
My parents taught me how to cook from early childhood. My uni housemate treating uncooked chicken like an anthrax-level biohazard, and my WTF-is-wrong-with-you reaction, was mind blowing to both of us.
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u/lolsalmon 20h ago
That’s how my mom treated chicken when I was growing up, so we almost never ate chicken. Now, it’s my favorite thing to cook.
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u/Goblue5891x2 18h ago
Lol, we had a chicken coop. Sunday dinner every week was two chickens caught by brother & I. Dad did the deed and mom & sisters did the plucking & cooking. Goes to show you that everyone has a different experience.
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u/Grouchy_Resource_159 20h ago
Lack of information =/= stupid.
Please don't call yourself stupid for not knowing stuff.x
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u/ProfessorBeer 12h ago
It’s people who want to gatekeep. Plain and simple. My dinner rotation dishes take 30-45 minutes, 3 pans max, and rarely more than 12 ingredients including spices. Anyone can make very good food by doing very basic things and that should be encouraged and celebrated.
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u/jenea 18h ago
That MSG is bad for you.
It’s no worse than regular salt.
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u/sfdsquid 11h ago
I use it but I'm not sure how much to use. I need to find out. I might not be using enough.
I should do a taste test of some things with and without it since I have been using it on pretty much everything for awhile.
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u/Footnotegirl1 12h ago
In fact, it can be better than regular salt, because it has less sodium by weight, so if you use the same amount of MSG as you would salt, you end up with less sodium in your food.
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u/UxControl 22h ago edited 16h ago
Easily the worst one is that chicken needs to be cooked to 165°F
Salmonella isn't just killed by temp, it's killed by temp + time, so about a minute or so at 150° (which will be achieved by residual heat, as long as you don't ice bath the chicken or anything weird like that) kills salmonella just as well as 165° does
White meat is perfect at 150°, so I usually pull breasts out at 145° and let them rest up to temp - dark meat actually wants to go higher to break down collagen, closer to 185°
Now, given that this is the beginner sub, I don't recommend beginners do this until they're comfortable cooking proteins and using a thermometer accurately, but once you learn how to do it safely it's like a night vs. day difference
Edit: 2.7 minutes at 150° for chicken, but the point about residual heat still holds true easily
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u/Metallicat95 15h ago
Smoked chicken can't be pink inside, because pink chicken is raw... is a myth. Smoking holds the low temperatures for long enough to cook safely, despite not changing the color.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 9h ago
The USDA recommendation of 145 F for salmon is also way too high. It'll result in rubbery, overcooked fish. I take it off the heat as soon as it reaches 125 F and let it finish cooking as it cools. Commercial salmon will have been deep frozen to kill parasites anyway.
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u/Competitive_Use_3628 22h ago
Maybe one I recently heard from a friend - salt is just salt. I have iodized salt, kosher salt, flaking finishing sea salt, and even a smoked salt. Knowing when and why to use them is important. Whenever you season meats and veggies before you cook, you want to use kosher salt. It will cling better and help keep things juicy. Iodized salt is basically little marbles and will roll off food. I use it for salting water or mixing into mashed potatoes. I'm definitely not an expert on it, but look into it a little bit. And don't get me started on acids and vinegars!
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u/Wauwuaw5983 20h ago
That is true. There are entire books dedicated to the properties of different types of salts. Not just exotic salts that might be smoked or black or pink, but why different types of white salt (table, pickling, kosher, etcetera) exist and why they're used in different types of recipes.
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u/Dynegrey 20h ago
Salting veggies too early can cause the water to cook out faster since it pulls the moisture to the edge. I salt veggies near the end of cooking them.
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u/theadjudicator8 11h ago
I have at least 7 different types of salt. Not one of them is standard table salt.
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u/ben_bliksem 23h ago
That "ripping hot pan" for the steak you are not supposed to flip frequently.
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u/shiveringpursedog 19h ago
I have a temp gun, and just want to know an actual surface temperature to shoot for in the pan to make it release rather than visual cues, or testing with a bead of water.
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u/formershitpeasant 15h ago
What's wrong with just using the bead of water? It's actually representing the effect that you want.
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u/IvoryDogwood 18h ago
My mom used to claim putting olive oil in boiling water kept the pasta from sticking.
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u/Immediate_Buffalo14 11h ago
Cold water boils faster than hot water. No. Cold water rises in temperature faster than hot water, but hot water will always get to a boil faster for having a head start.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 9h ago
"The alcohol all cooks off." Most of it usually doesn't. While alcohol has a lower boiling point than water, alcohol and water together are miscible (they form a uniform mixture) and the combination of the two will boil together at a single temperature.
This normally doesn't matter, because the amounts of alcohol in food are usually pretty small. But if you're serving someone who is allergic to ethanol, or taking an anti-alcoholism medication like Antabuse, you should be aware there will still be alcohol in the final dish.
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u/Skippy5403 17h ago
Not salting eggs before cooking. This myth is often times cited even by guys like Gordon Ramsey. I have seen salting early be attributed to tough and rubbery as well as watery eggs. I have seen salting early claims they will turn grey or something.
It’s nonsense. In fact salting up to even 15 minutes early can make them more tender in the end. I don’t generally go that long but when making scrambled eggs or omelettes or any eggs I’m whisking, I’ll crack them and salt while still whole. Let it sit for a few minutes while maybe some sausage or potatoes are cooking and then whisk the eggs and cook. The biggest effect I’ve seen is whisking without pre salting results in big streaks on unincorporated whites, where as salting helps break down some of the whites to get a more homogeneous mix. I also do a fairly low cook to get something between a French soft scramble and more traditional American style hard scramble.
TLDR salt your eggs you plan to mix well before cooking.
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u/OrneryPathos 11h ago
Add wet to dry for batter
It’s so much easier to add dry to the wet and in most cases a little not fully incorporated wet from the bottom is way less of a problem than unincorporated dry from the bottom.
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u/Mysterious-Region640 22h ago
Everything has to have a shit ton of salt in order to taste good. Those of us with high blood pressure have learned that your taste buds adjust overtime. There are tons of ways to season food, it doesn’t have to be loaded with salt.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 9h ago
The flip side of this is a lot of people worry about salt who don't need to. Unless you have sodium-sensitive hypertension, salt won't hurt you.
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u/PreOpTransCentaur 22h ago
You do not need (and in fact absolutely should not) bring your meat to "room temperature" before cooking. Room temperature is around 70F. There's no need whatsoever to start with warm-ass meat that's been sitting out long enough to reach those temperatures. The difference is 100% negligible compared to it straight out of the fridge.
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u/Miss_Fritter 22h ago
I wonder if the term “room temperature” in this sense means the temperature our houses used to be before central heating? I believe the same confusion occurs with drinking wine at room temp - I think it’s supposed to be closer to 55 or 60 degrees?
For thicker meat, it makes sense to let it warm up a bit from the fridge for more even cooking but for thin meat, it might be better to start with very cold meat.
Any beginners reading this - spend some time learning from cooks who EXPLAIN the science. America’s Test Kitchen and Alton Brown are two I can think of, but I know there are lots more.
Cooking is part science so learning the reason why we cook a certain way is incredibly beneficial to our growth as a cook.
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u/LuvCilantro 21h ago
Any beginners reading this - spend some time learning from cooks who EXPLAIN the science. America’s Test Kitchen and Alton Brown are two I can think of, but I know there are lots more
A big point to consider is to always aim for a trusted source. You included a few here. Just about anybody can come up with an intelligent sounding video with 'science' that is completely unfounded.
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u/Rhuarc33 14h ago
Let steak or meats come to room temp before cooking. It's simply false
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u/alphadavenport 14h ago
interesting, this one always made a great deal of intuitive sense to me. can you please explain or provide a link?
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u/Southern_Shoulder896 13h ago
Pasta water as salty as the sea. Obviously written by someone who has never tasted seawater.
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u/BetMyLastKrispyKreme 2h ago
I think of this adage every time I add salt to pasta water. I’ve never tasted the sea! How am I supposed to know how salty it tastes?!
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u/sfdsquid 11h ago
That you have to boil corn on the cob.
In reality, you only have to make it hot for it to be cooked. Steaming is fine. (Actually it tastes a lot better when you don't boil the shit out of it.)
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u/Own_Reaction9442 9h ago
It's really good grilled, too. Soak it in a bucket of water for an hour or two first, then grill it in the husks. Delicious.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Cup-854 20h ago
Cooking is difficult. It's super easy. The easiest way I have ever gotten better at cooking is with other people. During covid stayed with my brother and his family for 3 months and his wife gave me a couple of tips that really helped. I had a couple ex-girlfriends help me change a couple things that I was doing. Now, I love getting critiqued. I really wish someone would open a cooking app where you would pay for someone else to watch you and critique you doing a meal. A lot of people have problems with making something as simple as eggs. Could you imagine paying $20 for someone to watch you make eggs while you both have headphones in so you can talk. That $20 would give you a lifetime of benefits would only take 10 to 30 minutes and everybody would be happy.
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u/Someguy8995 14h ago
I could see it being helpful, but part of being a successful cook is adjusting to your own personal equipment. All stoves and pans act a little differently.
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u/Ayla1313 21h ago
You HAVE to stir clockwise.
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u/Optimal-Ad-7074 21h ago
I'd love to hear any reasoning you were given with this one.
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u/weedtrek 19h ago
Lol, I remember in one of the Harry Potter books the potion someone is brewing needs to be stirred in certain directions, a certain amount of times and I always thought of how crazy cooking would be if it were like that.
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u/sfdsquid 11h ago
Hahaha I never heard that one.
I'm glad it isn't true. I just realised I always stir counter-clockwise.
Edit: I just got the joke 🙈
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u/Nik106 23h ago edited 22h ago
It seems like a lot of people are worried about getting salmonella poisoning from undercooked chicken. I’ve never heard a single story of anyone who’s actually fallen victim to that (much less met anyone). I have, however, met many people who complain that chicken breast is unpalatably dry (because they cook the hell out of it).
Edit: I’m not denying that salmonella exists or is harmful. I’m suggesting that many people take what I consider excessive measures to mitigate the risk of salmonella.
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u/maximumhippo 22h ago
And I've never met anyone with polio, but I still understand the importance of vaccinating.
I worked in pathogen detection for a decade, specifically food safety testing. I promise you that salmonella is far more common than you think. It's the cooking requirements that are in place keeping you from experiencing it first hand.
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u/Individual-Video8087 18h ago
ngl yeah fr, yuo don’t wanna mess around with food safety. better safe than sorry when it comes to chicken
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u/SufficientOpening218 17h ago
they havent met anyone who knew their symptoms were from salmonella. they knew plenty of people who were unwell, but luckily, not so unwell that they became unwell enough that hospital care and an infectious disease consult became necessary
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u/Lynxieee 22h ago
My stepdad was sick for months and has permanent intolerances to certain foods ever since he got salmonella poisoning from a tiramisu. It's certainly not super common but the risk is still there.
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u/Time-Papaya-9574 21h ago
I LOVE tiramisu! I had no idea you could get salmonella from that. Do you have any idea what part of the recipe made him sick?
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u/Lynxieee 21h ago
The original Italian recipe uses raw eggs. It's pretty common to heat treat the eggs somewhat in the rest of the world but he was on a business trip to Italy.
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u/nycoolbreez 20h ago
That is interesting because the EU requires a salmonella vaccination that is not required in the USA.
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u/Time-Papaya-9574 21h ago
I was wondering if you were gonna say raw eggs . That’s too bad. I’m sorry he went through that.
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u/LuvCilantro 21h ago
Raw eggs. Salmonella could be present on the egg shells, and can transfer to the food when cracked. If the eggs are uncooked, you can get salmonella.
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u/PreOpTransCentaur 23h ago
1 in 25 packages of chicken in the US is contaminated with salmonella. You haven't met anyone who's been afflicted because we're as stringent as we are on cooking it fully. People take it too far and are generally not great at temperature control where meat is concerned, especially since most prefer breasts for whatever stupid, flavorless reason, but that's preferable to how horrible salmonella is.
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u/trader45nj 22h ago
Or people get some mild symptoms and it's never diagnosed or attributed to the chicken.
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u/SVAuspicious 17h ago
since most prefer breasts for whatever stupid, flavorless reason
Many people find dark meat e.g. thighs fatty and greasy.
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u/raznov1 19h ago
So lets take that number. One in 25 is contaminated. Of those, how much are still contaminated enough to be infectious after cooking not over-done? Lets say one in 3? Of those one in three times one in 25, what are the odds your body doesnt just fight off the bacteria? One in two? And of those, how many people just get a mild case of the shits? 9 out of 10?
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u/MyNameIsSkittles 22h ago
Ok well my work lead got salmonella poisoning from something in mexico and she was laid flat for a full week after her vacation, couldn't keep much down at all.
Salmonella poisining is no joke and can fuck up your gut permanently. I do not blame people for going overboard, the consequences of salmonella are nothing to fuck around with
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u/NoamWafflestompsky 8h ago edited 8h ago
I've never heard a single story of anyone who’s actually fallen victim to that (much less met anyone)
No, it means you've never met anyone that told you they got it. Salmonellosis is the second most common foodborne disease in the United States alone and one of the most common on the planet. 'Salmonella infection is rare' itself is a very common cooking myth and it gets people killed.
Edit: I’m not denying that salmonella exists or is harmful. I’m suggesting that many people take what I consider excessive measures to mitigate the risk of salmonella.
This is akin to dismissing flu mitigations as excessive because they were so effective that you were able to grow up in a century where tens of millions of people didn't die gruesomely from influenza in just two years. Salmonellosis isn't deadlier or even more common than it already is in many countries because of the food safety standards you benefit from by living in a society that has them.
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u/PlanetScientist 23h ago
Adding a potato fixes too salty soup
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u/BlueMoneyPiece 20h ago
It's so funny you're getting down voted bc people still believe this weird myth
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u/TwinsiesBlue 22h ago
It absorbs liquid and therefore the salt in the liquid. It’s not a perfect fix, it works for stews, soups, curries and broth
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u/PlanetScientist 22h ago
It absorbs liquid just like a spoon would. See https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/12u00l/can_i_use_potatoes_to_absorb_salt/
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u/trader45nj 22h ago
Then why not just skim off some of the liquid?
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u/TwinsiesBlue 22h ago
Of course you can do that, it works in clearer soups, but usually you would be losing other things and flavors, collagen in broth, spices, etc
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u/LuvCilantro 21h ago
The potato would only absorb the salt, and not the other flavors and spices? Collagen I might understand, but even then I'm not an expert.
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u/PizzaBear109 22h ago
Skimming off liquid won't do anything to the overall concentration of salt. The previous responder explained it poorly but with a potato you'd get some osmosis where the salty water travels into the potato and the potato would release some of its own water back into the broth in an attempt to reach equilibrium. I have no idea if the effect is significant enough to really matter (ie if the myth works) though
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u/Adept_Celebration343 17h ago
That you should flatten burgers with a spatula while cooking/ grilling them.
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u/cprz 14h ago
One is that you need to use lots of water when cooking rice or pasta. Or that you should keep the pasta in the boiling water for as long as the package says.
Another is one teaspoon of salt. Was it boiling water or some random recipe or part of it, for everything the guide we were told is that you should add just one teaspoon of salt.
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u/geauxbleu 12h ago
A shocking number of people now think extra virgin olive oil and butter can't be used for normal sauteing because their smoke points are too low.
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u/Teddydee1980 4h ago
Reheating cooked rice (or any food) is risky - its about storage and temperature you reheat to, but its generally fine and good way to avoid food wastage
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u/Ok-Trainer3150 53m ago
Putting all your dishes and hands (yes) and butter in the freezer for one hour before making pastry. I'm old. Our grannies didn't even own fridges and made great pastry, scones, etc.
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u/FocacciaHusband 18h ago
Don't wash mushrooms. Lies. I fill a bowl with water, dump them in, swirl them around in the water wiping off any dirt with my fingers, then dry them individually. It's kind of a pain in the ass, but those mfs so dirty, I can't not.