Old Wive's tales? Kitchen rituals now questioned.

HI,

I received the following from a friend:

These are 2 cooking habits that I've had, and now I'm wondering if they are valid or old wives' tales. Do you know?

1. Adding a little vinegar to the water for poaching eggs.

2. Adding cream of tartar to the water bath when you are baking something like a rice pudding in a casserole dish, in hot water in a metal pan?

Item 1: I believe the vinegar helps speed up the coagulation. I know people who add vinegar to water when hard boiling eggs to seal any fissures in the eggs.

Item 2: I cannot understand the contribution of the cream of tartar. In a follow up e-mail she suggested it was present to keep the pan from darkening. I responded if anything, the cream of tartar will contributed to darkening especially if the pan is aluminum.

What do you think? As well as are there kitchen rituals, which you wonder why you do what you do?

Regards,

As for the first point, you're right. Aside from having heard it from my grandmother, I saw it not long ago on some cooking show (perhaps the TV version of Cook's Illustrated), and they were using it for poached eggs, because, coagulating slightly more quickly, they didn't spread all over the place. You got nicer, prettier poached eggs.

As for the cream of tartar -- sorry, I've never heard that one. However, I've read that chewing a few cream of tartar tables will keep mosquitos from biting you.

I hope someone else knows about that one.

Jst found this on a site about canning -- it looks like the darkening metal could be the reason.

"The darkened surface on the inside of an aluminum canner can be cleaned by filling it above the darkened line with a mixture of 1 tablespoon cream of tartar to each quart of water. Place the canner on the stove, heat water to a boil, and boil covered until the dark deposits disappear. Sometimes stubborn deposits may require the addition of more cream of tartar. Empty the canner and wash it with hot soapy water, rinse and dry."

HI,

I would be interested in the link to canning website. Some of these canning websites have some woolly wive's tales aspects to them.

I once met a woman who self-published her family's canning recipes. Flipping through the book, I found a lot of problems with her processing methods. The worst was waterbath canning a meat product, which should always be pressure canned. When I very politely inquired about this processing method, she got very defensive explaining, "Nobody in my family has died following this recipe in 100 years."

Cream of tartar is is the common name for potassium hydrogen tartrate, an acid salt.

DIY wrote:Brighten aluminum utensils by cooking acid foods such as tomatoes, apples or rhubarb, or by boiling either 1 to 2 teaspoons cream of tartar per quart of water or 2 tablespoons vinegar per quart of water for 10 minutes in the pan. Prevent discoloration in the bottoms of double boilers or egg poachers by adding 1 teaspoon vinegar or 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to the water in the bottom pan. Remove stains from the outside of aluminum pans with silver polish, or mild, nonabrasive cleaner. Soap-filled steel wool pads scratch the outside surface, so use only when removing burned-on food or grease is more important to you than the scratched pan. Remove hard water mineral deposits (lime scale) from tea kettles where they have become crusted, boiling equal parts of vinegar and water for several minutes and letting stand an hour or so. The process may have to be repeated in severe cases. Rinse with plain water before using tea kettle.

While it appears cream of tartar has the cleaning properties, though it is probably cheaper to pour in some white vinegar instead.

Live and learn!

Regards,

Greetings, C2.

Here's the link for the canning site:
http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC3020.htm

It looks pretty legit -- that edu is always comforting, and the resources they listed look equally reassuring.

But as you say, it's not the only form of acid.