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Why do recipes
that call for baking soda usually also call for cream of tartar?
And what is "cream of tartar" anyway?
Liz S., Seattle, Wa
Cream of tartar
is refined from the grunge that is left on the inside of wine barrels
after the wine has been poured out. Honestly. I know it sounds unlikely,
but there you go. The chemical name for it is potassium bitartrate
and, as generations of cooks know, it is added to baking soda because
it stabilizes the air bubbles, making the rise more secure. It's
also used when beating egg whites for meringue for much the same
reason. Of course the real question is, who on earth figured this
out? Who first looked at the dried up crud on the inside of a wine
cask and said, "Hmm…I think I'll add that to my meringues today."?
It's one of those culinary imponderables, along with such eternal
questions as who first thought that artichokes might be edible.
My sister-in-law
always sets the table with the knife blades facing out. I was raised
to believe that they should face in towards the plate. Who is right?
Kelly M., Atlanta, Ga
You are. Your
sister-in-law is apparently hoping that her guests will slit their
wrists on the flatware before dinner, thus saving the expense of
an extra plate. Does she do this all the time, or only for family
dinners? The habit is not uncommon, of course, but one has to wonder
why it is done. After all, setting the knife with the blade facing
out not only makes no sense from a utilitarian standpoint (you'd
have to pick up the knife and then turn it in your hand for it to
be in the correct position for cutting), it also offends the aesthetic
sense of those of us who were raised to possess such a thing. Now,
back in the 18th century it was briefly fashionable to place the
forks with their tines facing down so that they wouldn't catch the
long lace cuffs of the gentlemen, but people throughout history
have tended to maintain a healthy respect where knives are concerned.
Read
last week's column here.
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