Comments on: When recipes attack

By: personal cook

personal cook — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 15:02:01 +0000

I’m with djw. How prosaic explanation is. I didn’t get the Homer image, but one of some bright young thing in publishing pitching to a boss for a book of recipes to be a) not published and b)not followed. The, not doubt, Powerpoint presentation might go: “Perhaps a notional present for the cook who has all the mace graters he or she needs and certainly doesn’t want another recipe book. No purchase, no wrapping, no shipping, no nothing.”

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 07:38:52 +0000

Either way, it can’t possibly be edible… at least not in my culture. Platypus pie anyone?

By: steve_wmn

steve_wmn — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 03:41:04 +0000

These excerpts was posted to a mailing list I subscribed to: “1 cup water, 1/2 cup shortening” “Bring water and shortening to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat – boil 5 minutes. Let stand until completely cooled” As someone mentioned the key flaw seems to be the risk of boiling over sending shortening all over the burners. Boiling shortening for 5 minutes seems pretty pointless to me when you could melt it perfectly well in simmering water in less than 5 minutes.

By: DJW

DJW — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 01:08:18 +0000

Somehow this becomes less fun when people offer actual rational explanations for how this might happen. Anyone else get an image of Homer Simpson pouring milk over cereal, only to watch it burst into flames?

By: novalis

novalis — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 23:03:15 +0000

Hm, maybe the original involved adding water to hot shortening—this is quite dangerous, because the water will boil immediately and cause the hot shortening to spatter. Adding shortening to hot or even boiling water should not cause spatters, since water boils at a lower temperature than shortening.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 20:41:28 +0000

Oh, here I was thinking the original recipe was using sodium methylate for the shortener.

By: Dan F

Dan F — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 19:16:35 +0000

I did not see the original recipe. Southern Living has apparently replaced it with a safer version. The revised recipe calls for adding boling water to shortening in a bowl. My guess: the original recipe called for adding the shortening to boiling water on the stove. Since shortening is less dense than, and will therefore float on, water, the danger would be that some of it might boil over onto the burner causing a flame which could then ignite the rest of the shortening.

By: rea

rea — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 18:06:31 +0000

Uh—how can combining water and shortening cause the mixture to ignite? Inquiring minds want to know!

By: Andrew Plotkin

Andrew Plotkin — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:00:19 +0000

If anyone has the original, hideously dangerous recipe, I’d love to see it. Food geeks want to know. Disclaimer: I am not a member of a terrorist organization, and I do not advocate the overthrow of the US government by cake or incendiary cinnamon rolls.

By: Andrew Plotkin

Andrew Plotkin — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 16:59:44 +0000