Food Myths
The alcohol does not all cook off, and the numbers are not close
Retention depends on method and time, and a splash of wine stirred through at the end keeps most of what you added. Flaming a pan…
Food Myths
Kitchen lore that survives because nobody tested it.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
Food Myths
Searing does not seal in juices, and the test is a set of scales
The idea came from a chemist's guess in the 1840s and was repeated in cookbooks for a century. Weighing the meat afterwards settles it in one afternoon.
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Resting meat works, and the usual explanation for why is probably wrong
Juices do not travel back into the muscle fibres like water into a sponge. Something real happens during resting, and the mechanism…
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Salt does not make water boil faster, and it slightly does the opposite
Half-remembered school chemistry produced a kitchen rule that runs backwards. The amount involved changes the boiling point by a…
Food Myths
Oil in the pasta water floats, which is the whole problem
It cannot reach pasta sitting under the surface, and whatever it does reach gets coated on the way out. The sticking is prevented…
Food Myths
Mushrooms do not soak up water like sponges, and a scale proves it
The instruction to brush rather than rinse comes from a much-copied cookbook line. Weighing mushrooms before and after a rinse…
Food Myths
That noise from the pan is steam, because lobsters have no voice
The sound comes from air and vapour forced out from under the shell. The animal has no lungs, no vocal cords and no mechanism for…
Food Myths
You can wash cast iron with soap, and the rule dates from a different soap
Old soaps were made with harsh alkali that genuinely attacked the seasoning. Modern washing-up liquid is a mild detergent and…
Food Myths
Dom Pérignon spent his career trying to get the bubbles out
Sparkling wine was described in England before the French monk is supposed to have invented it. In Champagne at the time, bubbles…
Food Myths
The fortune cookie is Japanese, and the paperwork survives
Similar cookies with paper fortunes were being made near Kyoto before they appeared in America. The switch to Chinese restaurants…
Food Myths
Marinades reach a few millimetres in and then stop
Cut a marinated piece in half and the colour line is visible. What actually travels into meat is salt, which is why brining works…
Food Myths
The fridge does not ruin a tomato, but it does mute one
Cold suppresses the enzymes that make the aroma compounds, and some of that loss is permanent. Whether it matters depends entirely…