If you add vinegar to baking soda, or vice versa, it fizzes. That's what cleans your drain. If you mix the2 together and dump down your drain, the fizz happens before you get it to the drain.
Vinegar will indeed clean soap scum from a shower...it is an acid which will help dissolve the alkaline soap scum.
And vinegar will clean copper...the salt acts as an abrasive.
There is anectodal evidence that vinegar will help arthritis. It has been used for such for thousands of years....and when something has been in use for that long, I tend to believe there is some truth in teh supposition even though there is no scientific reason why it should help.

Now what was it we would put in the glass to produce the bouncing mothballs and why does alum keep pickles crisp?
Linda C

I think if you're use to the taste of jarred herbs and spices, you're probably not going to mind keeping them for a while. So many people cook with dusty oregano or lackluster cinnamon that the taste of fresh or newly milled is nearly overpowering.

Another use for vinegar is to clear smoke out of a room. You can put plain white vinegar in a bowl and set it out in a room where a smoker has been and it does an amazingly fast job. Eventually it evaporates.

So glad those vinegar fixes worked for some of you. They didn't for me. That said, vinegar, like baking soda has many great uses. Just separate the myths from the musts.

An avacado pit in the guacamole does not prevent it from turning brown.

Myth: Most of the heat in a hot pepper is in the seeds. Nope, it's in the veins of the pepper.

And cold water does not boil faster than warm water.

Ashley made a "volcano" out of styrofoam for a science project, filled it with baking soda and food coloring, poured in vinegar and made lava, that was kind of fun. Not food related, really, though.

Annie

"And cold water does not boil faster than warm water"

makes sense... but does salted water boil faster than unsalted?

I don't know... just asking, but if someone covered this above I missed it.

kay

Lighting several matches in a room will reduce some kinds of odors. That's because the burning sulfur produces sulfur dioxide. Of course the burning matchstick produces other odors, so you should extinguish the match soon as the head has burned.

Jim

For those of us who do enjoy science, Howard McGee is a hundred times more interesting than Alton Brown. But he isn't on TV; he lectures and has written a few books. Very enjoyable to listen to, great sense of humor. As he lives in the Bay Area (I think) he often speaks around town; I heard him at the USDA facility in Albany, CA. Very low-key guy, not at all the show-off Alton is.

Cook's Illustrated a while back did check out the difference between taking out the green sprout in garlic and not doing so. They did indeed find a difference, saying the green sprout made for a more bitter garlic taste in both fresh and cooked dishes.

"Posted by kayskats ---- but does salted water boil faster than unsalted?
I don't know... just asking, but if someone covered this above I missed it. kay "

Salted water boils slower. In other words, you need higher temperature to boil salted water.

Regarding salt and beans. There was a discussion in another engineering oriented cooking forum that I visit.

A question was asked as to if adding salt can make cooking beans more tender. One engineer replied that yes, because adding salt can raise the boiling point of water, which was technically true.

However, later on another engineer pointed out that to raise the boiling point meaningfully, you will need to add maybe half of a pound of salt.

Goes to show you, you still have to take the advice from an engineer, with a grain of salt.

dcarch

What about the cider vinegar and honey that so many people swear by as an artery cleaner? Is this true? They swear by it.

And yes, I gargle with hydrogen peroxide in the evenings. You don't want to swallow it, not in those amounts and not the 3% grade you buy. Use it to swab on skin problems and then follow with teetree oil. Anything more than that and you want the food grade which isn't easy to come by.

Myth:

A 1 1/2 lb. lobster is more tender that a 4 lb. lobster.

Jim

Oysters should be eaten only in months when "Oysters 'R' in season".

Myth or must? I'll save my answer until a few others have had a chance to respond.

Jim

Must...oysters spawn in the summer ( months without an "R") and harvesting them depletes the supply.

Actually, most oysters on the market are now farm raised, so depleting the supply doesn't really have anything to do with it. However, when oysters spawn, they convert about 80% of their body to sexual organs, which are watery and tasteless, so spawning oysters really have little flavor. They also look spoiled to some (though they aren't) with a milky liquid rather than the clear oyster "likker" we aficionados so treasure. So in areas where the oysters spawn in our Summer months, they often just aren't worth eating. There isn't anything wrong with them.

The "months without R" rule more likely came from the days before refrigeration, when oysters spoiled so quickly in the Summer heat.

"Drinking milk with a fish meal will make you sick."

This is definitely a fallacy.

Linda, I can't figure out how harvesting oysters during the spawning season would affect the supply any more that harvesting at any other time. There are legal limits on the size of shellfish which can be taken, which protects against overfishing. Around here, oysters must be at least 3 inches long.

Rachelellen pretty well nailed it on the 'R' months. Other reasons have been offered but I think hers has the most validity. At a raw bar yesterday the guy opening the oysters thought the 'R' month thing was no longer valid at all. He thought it was left over from the days before red tide was able to be detected in a lab so oysters were avoided during the season when there could be red tides. I think he believed what he was saying but, after all, he was selling oysters in the summertime so it's unlikely he would offer Rachelellen's explanation!

IIRC, Rachelellen's reason corresponds with the one given by Euell Gibbons in Stalking the Blue Eyed Scallop. I trust his information. HOWEVER, the oysters I ate yesterday were as good as any I ever had and here we are right in the middle of the non-R season!?!?!?!?!

Jim

Beverly, that's a great myth about not drinking milk while eating fish! I had not thought about that in years. It used to be taken very seriously. Funny!

Jim

Is this a myth? Too many cooks spoil the broth?

dcarch

Hilarious! Love the artwork!

I say it's a "must", dcarch, and an excellent lesson for all of us!

Jim

No fish and milk? I never heard that one. What about chowder???

That's right, no milk with fish. Who said it had to make sense? LOL!

That rule was well known and respected when I was a kid. Right up there with no swimming for a half hour after a meal. Or was it an hour?

The swimming rule has to do with eating and food. So how about some opinions on that? Will you get cramps and drown if you get back in the water too soon?

Jim

It's one hour on the no swimming rule Jim. Of course I think we have to be real about it and not grossly overeat, then go in the water. Everything in moderation.

I know this is OT and has nothing to do with cooking, but did anyone's else's grandmother tell them to quit hanging upside down because all the blood would rush to your head and it would kill you? Mine really worried about that when I was a kid. Oh and don't read by a low light because it will ruin your eyes?

No. I was never athletic enough to do stunts like hanging upside down.

But I was told not to scowl because my face would freeze that way.

Jim

One of my myths has already been addressed; drinking milk while eating fish.

Another one was that eating pork close to bed time would cause you to have nightmares.

I had the habit of crossing my eyes at strangers to make them laugh when I was a child so my mother told me that my eyes would get stuck like that, to make me stop.

Unitarians put guacamole on their communion wafers.

Myth or must?

Jim

ROFL Jim!

Annie, I'm fascinated by the difference in how we feel about salt. Salted tomatoes are my favorite food in the world, I have to throw away noodles if I forget to salt the water, and the first time I had a salted caramel truffle was life-changing. Takes all kinds!! :-P

Yes, Jessica, it sure does. I like my food to taste like whatever food it is supposed to be, not just like salt. I feel the same way about hot peppers, I want a little bit of heat, but not so much that it detracts from the food I put it into.

Really, you throw the noodles out if the water isn't salted?

Oh, and I rinse my homemade sauerkraut before eating it because it's just way too salty for me. Dad loved it right out of the jar. Probably why he was on blood pressure meds by the time he was 35.....(grin)

Annie

I wasn't going to bring this famous one up. I thought for sure someone else will. I guess not.

When Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sprang forth from the ocean on an oyster shell and gave birth to Eros, did she also give oyster the power of the modern blue pill?

Just asking :-).

dcarch

I like it to taste like whatever it's supposed to taste like too, which it doesn't, unless of course it's salty :-P.

Yep. I got a couple of bites into a bowl of pasta and kept thinking 'something is seriously wrong with this pasta' and remembered that I'd been distracted and hadn't salted it. I wasn't putting sauce on it, just Parmesan, which wasn't cutting it. I am pretty careful usually, because it's massively disappointing. If I could smother it in salty sauce, I *might* eat it anyway. . .

That thing about the BP meds is scary. I know you miss your dad and have an unfair family history of cholesterol and heart troubles.

There is salt and there is SALT...I can't stand canned soup nor things made with a packet of onion soup mix nor that flavor packet in ramen noodles.
But I do want my pasta water salted.....and I love a handful of pretzels with some cheese.

And dcarch you seriously have your classical mythology mixed.

"Posted by lindac ------- And dcarch you seriously have your classical mythology mixed."

That of course is very possible. I was very young when Aphrodite was around. It has been a long time LOL!

"--An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire.[1][2] The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sensuality and love.---"

"-----Eros (Ancient Greek: Ἔñùò, "Intimate Love"), in Greek mythology, was the primordial god of sexual love and beauty. He was also worshipped as a fertility deity. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"), also known as Amor ("love"). In some myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares, --------"

In anycase, back on topic, what about the oyster myth? Anyone has found that it works?
BTW, I am asking on behalf of a friend, not for me. :-)

dcarch

A friend said the oyster myth is just that, a myth. ; )

The oyster-as-aphrodisiac myth was a schtick invented by one caveman Oog, who lived on a beach next to an oyster bed. He didn't have much else, but figured he'd get rich if he could just market them the right way.

So he told his buddies Droog and Moog they'd no longer have to beat the women over the head with clubs to get them into their caves if they just ate a lot of these slimy, unappetizing, rather disgusting looking blobs. Big Magic.

Men were men, even then, and though neither Droog nor Moog fared any better with the ladies, they didn't want to admit it and told tall tales about their conquests, and Oog's future prosperity was ensured.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

" Posted by rachelellen ---------- Men were men, even then, and though neither Droog nor Moog fared any better with the ladies, they didn't want to admit it and told tall tales about their conquests, and Oog's future prosperity was ensured. "

The long and the short of it, indeed, Oog the oyster shyster did very well. He made a lot of clams. Using his wealth, he later on started another venture to market Rocky Mountain oysters.

dcarch :-)

Aphrodite floated on a scallop shell. A much prettier background than an oyster shell! The most famous image is Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Venus being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite.

Dcarch, so THAT'S how the oyster myth got started? ?

Rusty

I wonder, are Rocky Mountain Oysters supposed to provide the same...er....benefit as regular oysters?

I did see slices of "Bull Penis" for sale in a Chinatown specialty meat market once. It was explained to me that eating it enhances virility. Not needing such enhancement myself, I passed.

Oh, dear, I'd hate to be caught staring at those items in Chinatown.....

And now back to our regularly scheduled program.....

what about putting cheese on pasta with fish dishes? is that the same as not drinking milk and eating fish at the same time?

Teresa, you're right, here it's very commmon to have fish specials in the restaurants on Friday and it's invariably accompanied by macaroni and cheese, which I never did really understand.

Rachelellen, I've eaten oysters and I've eaten Rocky Mountain oysters and neither one seemed to do much for me, or my date at the time. Yeah....

And I'm not eating either one of them again, if I can help it, so my research is finished.

Annie

Lol@Annie.

I just thought of another one. When I was a kid, my grandmother and mother both insisted that if a cake was in the oven one had to just about tiptoe around in the kitchen and not make any loud noises lest the cake fall.

I have since baked cakes with all sorts of commotion going on, and I've never had one fall.

Was there a reason behind this insistence on quiet & tiptoes or was it just a way to get kids to be quiet for a while?

The bit about fish and milk is called "Christian Kosher"...LOL! But the difference is those were from Grandmother not God.
And you can make a cake fall by jarring the pan at the quintessential moment. I have seen it happen by taking a peek and slamming the oven door....but perhaps it was the blast of cool air that did it.

Is it some certain kind of cake? My mother used to say it for pineappple upside down cake, I think.

If you are making popovers, openning the oven door can collapse the popovers.

dcarch

When I was a kid, we couldn't jump if a cake was in the oven. Probably angel food cake. My trick to flatten out cookies that are rising too much (usually chocolate chip), is to open the oven 2/3 way throught the cooking time, raise and end of the pan, and bang it down on the rack. Cookies instantly flatten out. So, I have a hunch, at least with a cake like angel food cake, a direct hit like the cake pan jarring, might deflate it. Shouting...not so much.

Half myth, half must.

Don't Fear That Expired Food

I wash the residue off mushrooms, they are often grown in a compost that while sterile have wheat straw -- and I stay far far away from anything with wheat! I love tomato with salt and pepper. I clean my cast iron with salt and half a lemon -- which is fantastic!

My favorite saying from Mom was about the starving children in China. I can truthfully say if I didn't want to eat whatever she was pushing that a child in China wouldn't have wanted it either!

Has anyone ever closely watched Pioneer Woman measure her ingredients? I'm a fan of the program because I also enjoy the kids and the animals, but seeing her casually dip into flour and then shake the dipper, which may be full but usually partially empty, drives me up the wall. Just a quirk of mine I guess, as is her adding hot sauce to almost everything. Note: PW is cause for admiration in many other ways.