Hi. I just saw this somewhere else.I thought the potato thing was
true also because my mom always did it. I guess it just seems like it does.
3. Choose the statements which are true:
A. Excess salt may be removed from a soup or stew by boiling a potato in the liquid
B. Salted water takes longer to boil than unsalted water
C. Only salt labeled "sea salt" actually comes from the sea
D. None of the above statements are true
Many readers took issue with my contention that D was the only true statement, so I will attempt to settle these issues to everyone's satisfaction. Let's start with the potato question.
Adding a potato to a soup or stew that is too salty was one of the first kitchen tips I ever learned, and I have tried it several times. It has never worked. Even so, this tip is still one of the more popular of kitchen old wives' tales, and even one of my favorite TV chefs (Sara Moulton, who is also executive chef at Gourmet Magazine) was recently spotted perpetuating this bit of misinformation in a 30-second promotional spot for her TV show. Come on Sara, your fans deserve better than that.
Here is what happens when you add a raw potato to an over-salted liquid: the potato cooks, and when you taste the potato it is salty. Does this mean that the potato absorbed the excess salt? No. All it means is that the potato has absorbed some salty water, just like almost anything else you would add to the soup or stew would do. Think of it this way: if you added a sponge to the liquid, and then wrung it out and tasted the liquid absorbed by the sponge, it would be salty, right? Right. But the liquid remaining in the pot is still just as salty because all the sponge did was absorb some of the salty liquid, right? Right.
I am sure you are asking yourself, "How does the Chef know all this stuff? Did he conduct scientific experiments in the vast underground Worldwide Recipes research laboratory to prove this?" The answer is that I didn't have to conduct scientific experiments because someone much better qualified than I am has already done that. A fellow by the name of Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and author of the Washington Post's syndicated food column "Food 101," to be precise. I won't bore you with the details of his experiment here because he does an excellent and entertaining job of explaining the whole thing here.
So, I hope that settles the old potato-in-the-salty-soup question. Tomorrow I will tackle another couple of food myths, also with the able assistance of Professor Wolke. Please stay tuned.
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