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From: dkatz@zaphod.UUCP (Dave Katz)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: "Superstition" in Cooking
Message-ID: <386@zaphod.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Dec-85 10:51:41 EST
Article-I.D.: zaphod.386
Posted: Fri Dec 20 10:51:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 03:17:23 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Develcon Electronics, Saskatoon, SK
Lines: 27


	One thing that has always interested me in cooking is the ritual
acts that recipes give as a guide to greater success.

	A typical example wold be in a Chocolate Buttercream Icing recipe
I saw recently which required that 3 oz of semi-sweet chocolate and 2 oz
unsweetened chocolate be melted together in a double boiler "and stirred
continuously for 1 minute or until well blended".  In a simple recipe
this might be reasonable, but within the context of the icing, the
overall mixing time for the final product was about 7-10 minutes.  I can
see no reason to spend time stirring the chocolates together when they
will be so well blended in the remaining steps.

	Another is I always sift the salt and flour and other dry
ingredients together and have yet to find ANYTHING in the screen at the
bottom of the sifter.

	What I'm interested in here are other people's suggestions for
cooking rules/methods which they beleive are unnecessary ritual or
superstition.  For some of us, this might make cooking easier by
removing unneeded work.  For others, we might come to understand why we
do certain things, or if food preparation methods have changed such that
the methods are no longer needed.


	Towards Better Gluttony
	Dave Katz