93 replies to this topic

[ChrisTaylor]

Just the other day I heard someone on an Australian cooking show say how throwing your steak on a really hot barbecue 'seals in all the juices.' I can't believe that shit is still floating around.

[jsmeeker]

Just the other day I heard someone on an Australian cooking show say how throwing your steak on a really hot barbecue 'seals in all the juices.' I can't believe that shit is still floating around.

I don't think that one is ever going to die. I'm certain it's not limited to TV, either. Wouldn't surprise me if there are instructors in cooking schools are various levels still telling students this.

[qrn]

Thats about as bad as Diana Kennedys Mex book where she is putting boiled beef chunks IN A BLENDER!!!!to make grated beef... jeeze
Bud

[JAZ]

From Dave Lieberman: Five things TV chefs get wrong.

He includes adding oil to pasta water and cutting baked goods when they've just come out of the oven. Ironically, he himself gets it wrong when talking about salting meat:

Yes, it's important to salt meat and salt it well; if you're making an enormous roast, however, salting the outside means the outside will be saltier than the inside. That's actually not bad, as long as slices include the salty crust and the less-seasoned insides, but many times, the meat is mis-cut as well as mis-salted. A better option, depending on what the final dish is, may be marinating, which gives the salt time to be absorbed further into the meat.

Dude, learn the difference between a marinade and a brine.

[PetersCreek]

I was horrified to see Alton Brown...

Okay, I have to own up to liking Alton's character on Good Eats...but then I'm a sciency kind of guy with an active nerd gene. Even so, he and virtually all TV chefs/cooks/posers do something that drives me to distraction: mispronounce Spätzle. I've heard spāt-zəl, spăt-zəl, and maybe even a half-gargled spatulas...but rarely the proper shpātz-ləh. Maybe it irks me because I lived in Germany for a few years or maybe it's my persnickety nature. I just happen to think that we should make a decent effort to pronounce such foreign words correctly...at least until they are completely co-opted into our native language.

[Porthos]

...but rarely the proper shpātz-ləh.

Drives me nuts too. FWIW: My wife has a degree in German Literature and we use a recipe from a German cookbook.

[ChrisTaylor]

I was horrified to see Alton Brown...

Okay, I have to own up to liking Alton's character on Good Eats...but then I'm a sciency kind of guy with an active nerd gene. Even so, he and virtually all TV chefs/cooks/posers do something that drives me to distraction: mispronounce Spätzle. I've heard spāt-zəl, spăt-zəl, and maybe even a half-gargled spatulas...but rarely the proper shpātz-ləh. Maybe it irks me because I lived in Germany for a few years or maybe it's my persnickety nature. I just happen to think that we should make a decent effort to pronounce such foreign words correctly...at least until they are completely co-opted into our native language.

People try but for most people it's too difficult. If all you speak is English (and/or other languages without letter patterns like 'zl' in common usage') then you--well, most of you--will be hard-pressed to even hear the distinction between spatzel and spatzle, let along pronouncing it. It's like that Japanese 'r' thing. Most Japanese would find hearing the distinction between our 'l' and 'r', let alone saying them, near impossible. Or the speakers of many European languages, they'd struggle to pick up on the subtleties of tonal languages such as Mandarin. Initially, at least. If you were immersed in the environment in which this language was spoken (like, say, if you travelled to Germany for a while ...) then probably you'd gradually pick it up (but plenty of people still don't--just listen to the English of some migrants). There are people who are exceptionally good at this sort of thing. You may be one of them. A lot of people are not. It's not some fault of character.

I'm going to get off my high horse before I start ranting about waitstaff--and self-appointed language tutors--who correct customer's mispronouncations of menu items.

[Mjx]

. . . .

People try but for most people it's too difficult. If all you speak is English (and/or other languages without letter patterns like 'zl' in common usage') then you--well, most of you--will be hard-pressed to even hear the distinction between spatzel and spatzle, let along pronouncing it. It's like that Japanese 'r' thing. Most Japanese would find hearing the distinction between our 'l' and 'r', let alone saying them, near impossible. Or the speakers of many European languages, they'd struggle to pick up on the subtleties of tonal languages such as Mandarin. Initially, at least. If you were immersed in the environment in which this language was spoken (like, say, if you travelled to Germany for a while ...) then probably you'd gradually pick it up (but plenty of people still don't--just listen to the English of some migrants). There are people who are exceptionally good at this sort of thing. You may be one of them. A lot of people are not. It's not some fault of character.

I'm going to get off my high horse before I start ranting about waitstaff--and self-appointed language tutors--who correct customer's mispronouncations of menu items.

I'm with you on some of the language pronunciation, but this one's fairly easy... leaving aside the ä in the middle (which really is a nuance thing), we're just talkng about a sh instead of an s at the beginning, and a schwa (like that you have at the end of 'Porsche') added to the end, after the l.

But I guess it's only a problem if you can't figure out what someone is talking about (I've had people encourage me to try their 'lovely prosqueeto and canaloop', and could still decipher what they were talking about).

[christine007]

well, Paula Dean is perfectly happy to teach you not to wash your hands, taste something with a spoon, then put the spoon back in the mixture, take a bite of something and then proceed to cook with it, and the coup de gras, feed the dog,OFF YOUR HAND, don't throw it up in the air and let him catch it, hell no, let him lick your fingers and then go back to cooking.
I've seen her do all of the above, and more I'm sure I can't remember. if you're going to teach cooking, isn't food safety in the mix somewhere? I have a dog, I know where his mouth's been... ugh. I get ill just remembering it. I only hope that everyone watching her knows better, but I'm sure that's not the case.

[JAZ]

Two incredibly stupid comments from TV peeps (on the same day, no less):

From Christopher Kimball (talking about brining): "Salt is made of two molecules, so it's faster at osmosis than sugar, which only has one molecule." I don't even know what this could possibly mean.

From Rick Bayliss: Having visited mussel and oyster farms in Baja Mexico and coming back to shore with a bin of each, he said they were coming back with a "big load of crustaceans." C'mon Rick! At least edit that out -- it was a voiceover.

[pastrygirl]

From Christopher Kimball (talking about brining): "Salt is made of two molecules, so it's faster at osmosis than sugar, which only has one molecule." I don't even know what this could possibly mean.

That makes no sense at all. Maybe he meant to say salt is faster because its a smaller molecule? NaCl has gotta be smaller than C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁.

[Mjx]

Two incredibly stupid comments from TV peeps (on the same day, no less):

From Christopher Kimball (talking about brining): "Salt is made of two molecules, so it's faster at osmosis than sugar, which only has one molecule." I don't even know what this could possibly mean.

. . . .

That's just bizarre. I'm guessing it means that neither Kimball nor whoever wrote up the cue card has a clue about chemistry.

[chemprof]

Two incredibly stupid comments from TV peeps (on the same day, no less):

From Christopher Kimball (talking about brining): "Salt is made of two molecules, so it's faster at osmosis than sugar, which only has one molecule." I don't even know what this could possibly mean.

Like many of my students, he has a hard time with the concepts of "atoms", "ions", and "molelcules". Salt (in this case sodium chloride, NaCl) breaks up into two ions (or particles) when it dissolves in water, a sodium (Na+) ion and chloride (Cl-) ion. Sugar (sucrose) molecules don't ionize, so you just have the one particle. So on a unit by unit basis, for every one "unit" of NaCl, you get two particles, and for every one "unit" of sucrose, you get one particle. This can make a difference in colligative properties like freezing point depression and boiling point elevation and osmosis (this last one is important in brining). Colligative properties depend on the number of particles in solution, and are not dependent on the identity of the particle.

Now, having said all that, unless Mr. Kimball is determining the concentrations of sugar and salt of his brining solution, taking into account the different molar masses of the two compounds, that this really matters all that much.

Sorry for the chemistry lecture, occupational hazard.

[Dave the Cook]

Two incredibly stupid comments from TV peeps (on the same day, no less):

From Christopher Kimball (talking about brining): "Salt is made of two molecules, so it's faster at osmosis than sugar, which only has one molecule." I don't even know what this could possibly mean.

Like many of my students, he has a hard time with the concepts of "atoms", "ions", and "molelcules". Salt (in this case sodium chloride, NaCl) breaks up into two ions (or particles) when it dissolves in water, a sodium (Na+) ion and chloride (Cl-) ion. Sugar (sucrose) molecules don't ionize, so you just have the one particle. So on a unit by unit basis, for every one "unit" of NaCl, you get two particles, and for every one "unit" of sucrose, you get one particle. This can make a difference in colligative properties like freezing point depression and boiling point elevation and osmosis (this last one is important in brining). Colligative properties depend on the number of particles in solution, and are not dependent on the identity of the particle.

Now, having said all that, unless Mr. Kimball is determining the concentrations of sugar and salt of his brining solution, taking into account the different molar masses of the two compounds, that this really matters all that much.

Sorry for the chemistry lecture, occupational hazard.

I think what you've laid out here is probably what confused Kimball. It's a little harder to explain away his implication that you could use sugar instead of salt in a brine, and the only difference would be that sugar would take longer.

[Snadra]

Oh. Steak tartare in a food processor.

Anyone up for beef paste?

Erm... I actually make tartare in a processor. As long as you start with smaller bits of meat, pulse only and don't over process I find it works really well. I grew up with fairly finely minced tartare though, and loathe it when it's too chunky. And I didn't learn it from food TV.

[SylviaLovegren]

I've learned to add the word "up" to most cooking verbs. I now fry up bacon rather than fry it and I chop up onions, I no longer chop them. "Up" is also a helpful enhancement to slice, freeze, cook, stir, boil, and dice, at least according to Giada and others.

Not limited to food shows. It's a modern thing, apparently. You don't "change" things anymore, you "change them up". You don't "switch" something, you "switch it out." It's odd, isn't it?

[annabelle]

I've learned to add the word "up" to most cooking verbs. I now fry up bacon rather than fry it and I chop up onions, I no longer chop them. "Up" is also a helpful enhancement to slice, freeze, cook, stir, boil, and dice, at least according to Giada and others.

Not limited to food shows. It's a modern thing, apparently. You don't "change" things anymore, you "change them up". You don't "switch" something, you "switch it out." It's odd, isn't it?

Finally! I'm ahead of the curve since I've been saying those things for ages.

[gfweb]

render-down, fry-up, and in the case of The Next Iron Chef "screw-over"

[annabelle]

Heh. I've been saying "throw him/her under the bus" since the 80s, too.

[jrshaul]

I write for an unread campus paper. If anyone I work with ever again repeats that all pork should be cooked to 170F to prevent (insert horrible doom here), I will personally hunt them down and make them eat a Kwanzaa Cake. I especially hate when they show a lovely medium-rare steak, and then tell you to cook it 'till it's indistinguishable from the charcoal.

[Edward J]

....do something that drives me to distraction: mispronounce Spätzle. I've heard spāt-zəl, spăt-zəl, and maybe even a half-gargled spatulas...but rarely the proper shpātz-ləh....

I dunno about that one. True, my visits to Germany have been very brief, but I lived and worked in Switzerland for many years, and have worked with many Germans, Austrians, and Swiss.

As the regions change, so does the pronunciation, shape,and to a certain extent, the ingredient list of the beloved spaetzle (sorry, no umlaut on my keyboard.

On a previous thread, I questioned the pronunciation of "Caramel" which I feel should be pronounced "Care-a mel", but was reminded that according to some new wiki, it is accepted to proniounce it "Car-muhl" with the "a" in the middle silent.

Meh, it's a moot point....

[dcarch]

I have not read the whole thread. Sorry if this has been mentioned already.

I don't understand why so many of them use their bare hands to mix things.

Kneading dough, yes. Salad? No! What's under those finger nails!

dcarch

[JAZ]

Not a TV show, but in a blog post on chicken curry, Michael Ruhlman says that his kids "are getting their veg from the chicken stock." When a reader points out that the chicken stock in a serving of curry contains virtually none of the nutrients of the vegetables used to make it, he steps in it even deeper with his reply: "really? then why does stock made with onion carrot and celery taste so much better?"

[gfweb]

Not a TV show, but in a blog post on chicken curry, Michael Ruhlman says that his kids "are getting their veg from the chicken stock." When a reader points out that the chicken stock in a serving of curry contains virtually none of the nutrients of the vegetables used to make it, he steps in it even deeper with his reply: "really? then why does stock made with onion carrot and celery taste so much better?"

So then ketchup does qualify as a vegetable source!

Ruhlman is kind of a numbnut at times.

[judiu]

I have not read the whole thread. Sorry if this has been mentioned already.

I don't understand why so many of them use their bare hands to mix things.

Kneading dough, yes. Salad? No! What's under those finger nails!

dcarch

Ever read Beard On Food? He recommends using fingers as the primary mixing tools to "get the feel" of whatever you're mixing, be it a dressed salad or whisked egg mixture for an omlette!

[ChefCrash]

Not a TV show, but in a blog post on chicken curry, Michael Ruhlman says that his kids "are getting their veg from the chicken stock." When a reader points out that the chicken stock in a serving of curry contains virtually none of the nutrients of the vegetables used to make it, he steps in it even deeper with his reply: "really? then why does stock made with onion carrot and celery taste so much better?"

Wait a minute! If we're to believe the host of the other show who taught us that vegetables boiled too long will lose their nutrients in the water, then Ruhlman is correct;)

[Mjx]

I have not read the whole thread. Sorry if this has been mentioned already.

I don't understand why so many of them use their bare hands to mix things.

Kneading dough, yes. Salad? No! What's under those finger nails!

dcarch

Ever read Beard On Food? He recommends using fingers as the primary mixing tools to "get the feel" of whatever you're mixing, be it a dressed salad or whisked egg mixture for an omlette!

What really bugs me is that whenever I see images of TV chefs, their nails are almost invariably too long.

If you work with food, it's the same as working in a health profession, you take the nails down to the finger tip, so you have a far better shot of getting your hands really clean.
It isn't even hard to do: I've more or less constantly kept my own nails in this state ever since I first became an LMT; you just file them a bit every night, which keeps them short without the risk of opening even the top layer of skin.
And long nails on people who prepare food? URGH.

[Jane Randahl]

These are always fun. One can debate the need to be exact with baking and it probably depends on who you ask. I for one am an exactist.

Anyway, most TV chefs do a few things wrong. All of them. Things like:

Holding a knife - Watch how TV cook hold knives. They generally hold it with their index finger along the spine of the knife instead of holding the blade with the handle tucked under their wrist.

Oil & Water - Ever seen people try to keep pasta from sticking by pouring oil into a pot of boiling water? You don't need to be a chemist to know that oil floats on top of water and can't possibly affect the submerged pasta.

Cold Dough - If you see a TV recipe making food with cold dough, don't try it at home. Thinly cut pieces of dough need to be warm before they are pliable, and trying to use them cold will be very frustrating.

Hot Baked Goods - My personal favorite: TV chefs eating from a pie that just came out of the oven. Definitely don't try this at home as most fruit filling is hot, runny, molten lava out of the oven.

[Pierogi]

Honestly, I have never seen a TV "cook/chef/teacher" hold their knives with their index finger along the spine. EVER. In fact, most of them, if not all of them, specifically instruct you to curl your dominant hand around the handle/bolster to give you more power and control, and less chance of loping off the stray finger. And I have (and do) watch a lot of TV cooking shows, good and bad. Now, I'm not sure what a hack like Guy Fieri uses for a grip on his knives, I don't consider him a cook, and can't say I've ever watched one of his shows from start to finish, but even Rachael Ray grips her knife properly.

Same for the oil in the pasta water. Even Ray-Ray says don't do it (ok, she likely says it more cutesy like.....it's a "no-no go-go on the EVOO", or something equally as hurl-inducing), but I can't remember anyone in the last 30 years telling me to dump oil in the pasta water. Don't know where you are, and what shows you're watching, but around here, the knife thing and the oil thing don't happen and don't get promoted.

Eating the screamin' hot food, that's an occupational hazard of cooking on TV, I'm afraid. But of course, 99% of those "piping hot" dishes have been chilling in the back kitchen for an hour or so as back-up for the money shot before the host chomps into it, anyway.

Edited by Pierogi, 06 May 2012 - 10:56 PM.

[GlorifiedRice]

I learned from Christina Pirello that all eggs at the store would have become chickens had us brutes not put them in the fridge and that SALT closes vegetables shut.

Edited by GlorifiedRice, 07 May 2012 - 03:48 AM.