The Food Geek
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Ginger ale, ginger beer
What's the difference between ginger ale and ginger beer, and is there really such a thing as a "ginger beer plant"?
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Mashed potato textures
Potatoes processed with a ricer have a different texture than those processed with a mixer. Why?
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Cucumber Preservation
Though it's not the best for the environment, there are reasons to wrap cucumbers in plastic.
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Flattened Cookies
2 commentsSometimes what should be a nice, puffed-up cookie falls flat. Literally.
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Less Moist: Dehydration at Home
Sometimes you get a bounty of tasty food that you want to preserve, but you don't want to take up all that freezer space and you've canned about as much as you're going to can. Do you buy a specialty machine to do that, or are there other options?
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How Baby Carrots are Made
1 commentThere are no storks, but baby carrots often have to go a ways to get to your home
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Why is Spicy Food Spicy?
Some foods are a little spicy, and some are really, really spicy. What causes the spiciness and why?
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Steak vs. Hamburger
If beef is beef, why is it safe to have a rare steak, but not a rare hamburger?
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Chef vs. Cook
4 commentsWhat is the difference between a chef and a cook? Should you feel bad if you are one and not the other?
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Under Pressure
1 commentPressure cookers speed up cooking by increasing pressure inside the pot, thus raising the temperature of the food inside. So why are they also affected by high-altitudes?
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Is "Cheese Food" Either?
2 commentsThere are things masquerading as cheese in grocery stores all across America. Are these things cheese, especially the cheese that is named for our country?
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Muffin/Cupcake Taxonomy
2 commentsWhat's the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?
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Popping Foam Bubbles
2 commentsSprinkling cinnamon sugar onto a latte's foam seems to pop the bubbles more than it should. Let's explore why.
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Stale Irony
5 commentsThe refrigerator is supposed to keep our food fresh for longer, but some claim that putting bread in the refrigerator makes it go stale faster. Read on to learn what's going on, how to prevent it, and how to fix it (sometimes).
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High-Rise, Fallen Cake
A promising angel food cake collapsed in the oven shortly before it was done. What could have caused this tragedy?
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Simmer vs. Boil 202: The Master Class
Why does heating to a full boil make it hard to simmer afterwards? Why does stirring a simmering pot cause it to stop simmering? And, most importantly, why does a watched pot never boil?
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Bain of the Cheesecake
1 commentWhen making a cheesecake, is the water bath, also known as the bain-marie, the best way to go? Why do we even need to bathe a cheesecake?
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Baking by the Numbers
7 commentsThere are times when it's really useful to have know how much of one ingredient to use versus another. Bakers use formulas called Baker's Percentages to help them. Here's how they work.
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The Tyranny of Precision
Precise measurements can make you feel like a small mistake will cost you too much in your recipes, but it's really not so bad.
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ABOUT THE FOOD GEEK
Kitchen Mysteries is a weekly exploration of oddities surrounding cooking and food. They could be recipes that fail when they shouldn't, conflicting advice from different sources, or just plain weirdness. If it happens in a kitchen, and you're not sure why, send a tweet to The Food Geek to find out what's happening.
Brian Geiger started down the path of food geekdom after attending cooking school in Tuscany. A robotics project manager by day, he writes Fine Cooking’s Food Geek column, and in this blog tackles readers’ culinary mysteries every week. Be sure to check out his own blog at thefoodgeek.com.
