Food Myths
Marco Polo did not bring pasta home, and a trade magazine invented the story
Italian records mention pasta before he ever left, and a geographer described dried pasta being exported from Sicily long before…
Food Myths
Kitchen lore that survives because nobody tested it.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 2
Food Myths
Bread goes stale by rearranging its starch, not by drying out
A loaf left in the fridge stales faster than one on the counter, despite losing less water. The process is a slow crystallisation…
Food Myths
Letting a steak come to room temperature does almost nothing
The instruction appears in cookbooks everywhere and can be tested with a thermometer in under an hour. A thick piece of meat warms…
Food Myths
Both sides of aluminium foil do the same thing, and the finish is a rolling artefact
The shiny and dull faces exist because two sheets pass through the final rollers together. Only one kind of foil has a side that…
Food Myths
A sharpening steel does not sharpen anything, and the name is the problem
Running a knife along a steel rod straightens an edge that has folded over. Removing metal to make a new edge is a different job…
Food Myths
Older eggs peel more easily, and the usual explanation is shaky
Cooks have noticed for generations that a very fresh boiled egg fights back. The effect is real and repeatable, while the tidy…
Food Myths
The box of baking soda in the fridge came from an advertising campaign
A company with falling sales for its main product invented a second use for it in the early 1970s. Controlled comparisons since…
Food Myths
The champagne coupe was in use before any of the women it is named after
The wide shallow glass is said to have been moulded from a queen's breast, or an empress's, or a mistress's. Records place the…
Food Myths
Whether hot water freezes faster is still not properly settled
The claim goes back to antiquity and was revived by a schoolboy's classroom question in the 1960s. Careful attempts to reproduce it…