Mike and I had a discussion last night about Prime Rib. He told me he believed it to be an indication that the beef was of a USDA grade Prime. It isn't tho, Prime Rib indicates the cut of the beef, not the grading of it and in restaraunt terms also relates how it is cooked, as a whole roast. They classify cuts of beef as primal cuts, The rib cut is a primal cut, then within the rib cut is the "prime rib" it is traditionally from rib 6-12, but often this is where people cheat.
Wiki

Thought maybe this was a common misperception, what other foods do we have a common misunderstanding of are fooled by their names?

One I can think of is geoduck (pronounced gooey duck), which sure isn't a duck.

Or Jerusalem Artichokes, which I love, are not from Jerusalem or have any relation to artichokes. They are a root vegetable.

Another that a member of my own household disagreed with until proven was that butter won't spoil if left out of the refridegerator. I hate cold butter and always leave mine in a dish on my counter.


More?

Uck. Butter will go rancid if left out too long. After all, it IS a dairy product.


Other odd names for food I can think of are ladyfingers, monkey bread, spotted dick (!), and Welsh rabbit (or rarebit), which is neither Welsh nor rabbit. What’s up wit dat?

Just for the record all food will eventually spoil.

I thought of another.... In Europe and I would imagine other countries too, they sell eggs right off the shelf, not refrigerated.

I had always thought the name Welsh Rabbit was a slight to the Welsh, but everyone always uses rarebit nowadays.

Not Velveeta.

Another myth, Velveeta is not a food

Look if people in Haiti can eat dirt and call it food then I say you can eat a petroleum/coal tar based byproduct and call it food...

True Story:

I was a supervisor at Price Club (now Costco) when a member complained that we were improperly storing Velveeta in the steel and not in the refrigerators. I replied "It's a cheese food, not a real food, it doesn't need to be refrigerated." The member vowed to never eat it again.

Actually, most of what stores sell as food is not food... it's a food product... a product of food science.

Another oddly named food would be Toad in the Hole, which does not actually involve amphibian life of any kind.

Butter is fine when left unrefrigerated. It will eventually spoil, but keeping it covered will keep it good for quite a while, actually. If it smells bad or gets moldy... toss it.

Hard cheese can also be left unrefrigerated if it is wrapped well.

I'm big on leaving the butter out. I hate the hard butter...although in winter in Chicago it makes no difference.

Bangers and Mash always struck me as funny.

Danish meatballs are called frikadeller which occasionally produces a 'what' or a snicker.

Birria is a mexican goat stew, and has no beer in it, and "Bimbo" bread is kind of like the mexican wonder bread.

The only food myth that bugs me is that going vegan / vegetarian is automatically good for you.

My thought, exactly!
As for butter, I guess it boils down to personal preference; I can't stand mushy butter.

Also, sweetbreads...what is so "sweet" about offal?

I don't know if it's considered a myth or not, but Caesar salad dressing contains anchovies, either directly or through the Worcestershire sauce.

My vegetarian niece was not pleased to learn that.



Mike

I concur with butter: I hate it when it's too hard to spread. What's the point?

Also agree with Entspeak, that most of what they sell in supermarkets today is not food, but food products. Like food, but not quite.

And a food "myth" I dislike is that bottled water is better for you/tastes better. Under current law, bottle water does not have to be filtered. And oftentimes, it really is only tap water in a fancy bottle (which is ultimately bad for the environment, thus continuing the cycle of dirtying the water).

Well you guys should see what they feed the kids at public school and to think that for some it is the only good hot meal they get.

I agree on the bottled water myth, I do occasionally buy bottled water but only mineral water. I used to pack bottled water in my kid's lunches, now I just use refillable bottles. I got this fancy water purifier system, seriously it takes up a whole closet in my basement plus all under my kitchen sink (I have a well) and so I think my water is now better anyways.


Mike how about how some cheese has baby cow stomach in it? Rennet

Or that some wines use bull's blood as a clarifier.

Wait... if my butter gets moldy and smells funny, I shouldn't eat it?

Not to make this all political, but this is a direct result of farm subsidies. The school lunch program is such a sham.

I find it interesting that this topic came up (not school lunches, but food myths) because I am writing my thesis on federal nutrition policy/food safety.

Well you shouldn't eat it if you're some kind of GIRLY MAN
However, UltimateJoe (and I now question your Ultimate monicker) if you're a real MANLY MAN you eat your butter after it falls in dirt! Mold? Smell? A real man would eat moldy, smelly butter INSTEAD OF "new shiny" butter.

***oooooh lookit me I like my food clean! watch me flit about like a hummingbird as I sip my camomile tea and clean butter!***

Further to Mike's observation regarding Caesar salad (properly, Cesar salad - after its creator, Cesar Cardini), a real Caesar salad is dressed with a raw or coddled egg (in addition to olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, anchovies, and Parmesan cheese) - and is supposed to be prepared at the table. It otherwise consists only of whole leaves of romaine lettuce and croutons (or day-old bread).

According to Wikipedia and reference.com, though, the original Caesar Salad did not include anchovies (with the anchovy flavor coming from the Worcestershire sauce). Both sources are virtually identical, claiming that "Rochelle Low is credited with the creation of the 'nouveau-Caesar' style by adding the hotly contested ingredient of anchovies". I'd never heard this before. And the only Rochelle Lows I could find online were a field hockey player from Vancouver and a student who was at Virginia Tech during the Cho Seung-hui shootings. Neither seems to be linked to romaine lettuce.


As bucket mentioned, in Europe, butter and eggs tend not to be refrigerated. I haven't refrigerated an egg in thirty years. As for butter, I prefer it at room temperature, though I only un-refrigerate it one stick at a time.

As for food misnomers, how about humble peanuts, which are neither peas or nuts? For that matter, a watermelon is not a melon. And shortbread isn't bread (any more than sweetbreads are - and, as Daffy mentioned, they're not particularly sweet).

As for foods that are bound to displease (or at least surprise) on the basis of their names, Yorkshire pudding isn't exactly what I'd consider a pudding (the same would go for black pudding and white pudding, though you don't come across them often in the US). The worst though is probably Bombay duck - which is, in fact, dried lizardfish.


We need not speak of prairie oysters.

I have to agree. I have smashed anchovies into Caesar, and can't say that it really adds much beyond the normal, Worcestershire flavor. Fishy. I do like a bonus anchovy, preferably a white anchovy (raaaaacist) on top of a regular caesar salad. And the real, fresh shaved parmesan cheese. And homemade croutons... Getting hungry just posting this.


I agree on the butter, but could never get used to un-refrigerated eggs. Freaks me out. I have always loved that the mexican word for popcorn is palomitas (little doves) - so poetic.

Bucket is right; this is just another (not very) veiled English insult against the Welsh (like all the sheep gags). The joke(!) is that the medieval Welsh were so poor that cheese on toast was the closest they could get to eating rabbit (which, unlike in the last two or three centuries, was not free-roaming peasant food in the UK, but a prized delicacy of the Normam aristocracy).

"Welching" on a bet or a deal is another such insult. It isn't used much in the UK any more - presumably because there are too many Welsh people around who'd take exception to it - but has survived in American English.


Except honey, apparently. Something to do with the high sugar concentrations osmotically destroying all bacteria or fungi that try to grow on or in it. A book of trivia I read recently said that ancient Greek and Egyptian honey found in intact jars is as good as the day it was stored.



Yup. So in the USA they are sold from chiller cabinets? Why?



Yup. And even if they don't try to convert you, they're still really smug about it.

*controversial views follow* Vegetarianism (especially) is a crock, ethically speaking. What would happen to all the farm animals if the whole world turned veggie? Er, they'd be slaughtered as pests, not sent to cosy retirement paddocks to live out their years in some rural idyll.

And most vegetarians eat eggs, but do they realise that across the whole egg industry - including free range - the male chicks are gassed as soon as they are identified because they are economically useless as live birds? Which, given that most laying varieties are bred so that the male and female chicks are different colours, happens at the cute fluffy cheep-cheep stage. And that most thickened sauces (but especially mayonnaise) and many prepared foods contain battery farmed egg derivatives? But hey, they don't eat meat, and are therefore operating on a higher moral plane than the rest of the human race.

Despite the fact that, as omnivores, humans can survive and thrive on an all vegetable diet (just as dogs can), have you ever noticed how many vegetarians & vegans keep pet cats? Cats are pure carnivores and will die if they don't get to feast on the flesh of dead things, whether that be canned or packet catfood, or the neighbourhood mice and birds. Oh well, high moral stances are all well and good for other people, but little kitty has to have fresh kills.

And despite the fact that vegetarianism is far from the natural state of humans - we are omnivores, like chimpanzees, not vegetarians like gorillas. It's why our vermiform appendix is tiny and vestigial and not a great big bag of fermenting vegetation. It's why vegetarians take vitamin supplements - we need to get vitamins in our diets that truly vegetarian species would (or rather that their gut flora would) manufacture inside their bodies. (The cat family require certain vitamins that we don't need in our diet; our gut flora make them for us. That's why cats die if we try to make them fully vegetarian; the only current source of these feline vitamins is meat and meat products.)

To my mind the most ethical food standpoint is to eat meat in moderation (i.e. once or twice per week, rather than as the mainstay of every meal) and to take an active interest in where the animals came from and how they were raised and slaughtered. If we all did this, factory farming would become a thin of the past, and with it the necessary population of livestock would shrink to levels where the higher land areas required to raise them would become sustainable again (i.e. we wouldn't have to cut down rainforests to raise beef cattle to keep burger prices below a dollar. And the burgers would taste better, to boot.).

/sermon over.

(Apologies to any offence caused to bunny huggers in the community. But you're still wrong )



Many wines and (I think) most beers (at least most ales) use something called isinglass finings to remove particles of leftover yeast, unfermented vegetable matter, and other impurities and clarify the beverage. Isinglass is fish gelatine.

The biggest food myths, though, are that industrialised food production is a neutral or good thing (despite rising obesity levels in every country that has industrialised their food production); that the artificially cheap food that comes from this industrialised production is some kind of basic right (meat cheap enough to eat at every meal is not only of lower quality and flavour than traditionally reared and matured meat, but it's not good for us); and that the solution to this is not a wholesale reform of the entire agricultural and food industries to go back to basic principles of animal husbandry, but instead to create yet another set of multi-billion dollar industries based on short term weight loss (dieting and cosmetic surgery).

Yeah they idea is that the eggs will spoil and become little capsules of poison. In fact I feel like there is a lot of distrust in America towards eggs. They have all these food warnings about raw or under cooked eggs, it is just silly to me. I always make my own salad dressing with a raw egg yolk and soft bollied eggs are a family favorite.

It might have something to do with the hoarding mentality of most Americans. We have huge refrigerators, buy everything in vast quantities (by comparison to Europeans) and expect the food to last a long while. We don't generally buy small quantities. Refrigeration makes the eggs last longer...same with butter (though it won't melt on toast that way, and has to come to room temperature to mix in pastries...).

The food myth that annoys me the most? "Salt is bad for you". Gah! What rubbish. We need sodium for homeostasis, as well as all muscular activity, and hyponatremia is deadly. There are very few individuals who are salt sensitive, to which this would apply, but overall it's entirely false. In fact, there are people who are prone to hyponatremia and those individuals will fall into a coma without a fair supply of salt. Sometimes people with hypertension and hyponatremia are the same and a low salt diet will kill them before their high blood pressure will.

I can't remember where I read this, but I think there is a very real fear of food poisoning from eggs in the US. Although we tend to think that egg shells should protect the embryo from bacteria (and other things), I've read that there have been several cases of salmonella from eggs. It has something to do with the bacteria entering through small cracks in the egg shell, or through some other means. It develops inside the egg.

After spending time in Europe, I grew accustomed to unrefridgerated eggs. And it made sense to me, because eggs aren't cold when they are layed by hens. However, I think that the chickens in the Europe are kept differently than they are in the US, and they have more stringent government safety standards. Hence, eating eggs off the shelf in Europe is not the same as eating eggs off the shelf in the US.

As per Julian's anti-vegetarian rant, I want to point out that while I think the goal of many vegans and vegetarians is to promote less consumption of meat, I don't think that we realistically believe that we should all stop eating, right now. For me personally, the idea is that as more people stop eating meat, the need to raise animals for mass consumption will decrease. Thus, factory farms and the like will gradually disappear.

I suspect that sweet meats came from the days that organ meat had a sweeter taste than regular meat, to the tastes of the time. If you notice what wild predators go after first, it's the liver. Yum?

Heard somewhere that our bodies are now considered hazardous waste. Guess we do become what we eat, eh? Well, what we burn too. The mercury comes from burning coal.

We really ought to stop doing that.

I'll take cold butter, thank you very much. It tastes better, except in cooking where it's really hard to keep it cold at 350 degrees.

Tried being a vegitarian for a couple of years in my youth. I hate soybean anything now. Meat raw and bloody meat cooked full of carcinogens on the little charcoal grill

But not too often.

Another Food Myth that really ticks me off is the one that states:

Not everything tastes better with bacon.

That's ridiculous. EVERYTHING is better with bacon. Got a rancid egg? (You know because it was improperly refrigerated.) Wrap it in bacon. Now it's a tasty treat anytime of day. Dog had an accident on the carpet? Wrap it in bacon! In my home on Sunday we have bacon wrapped bacon with bacon grease patties (wrapped in bacon.)

It's like when people say, "You can't put Vodka in that!" Of course you can. Got some Drano burning a hole in your liquor cabinet but don't have anything to "cut" it with? Vodka! And bacon!

Vodka and bacon. It's not just part of BA's creative imagination anymore - Bottoms Up!

Well, at least we know it'll go well with egg nog.

And it can't be any worse than garlic vodka or chilli vodka (both of which are sold in commercial quantities).

Yuck. That's almost as bad as the "turkey and gravy" soda that comes out around the holidays (Jones Sodas?) - now that's just nasty!

Is chilli vodka similar to pepper vodka? It's actually really good. I once had a "hot martini" which I thought was going to be disgusting, but it was awesome. Plus, it's great for bloody marys!...If you like them spicy.

Chili Beer

As someone who has both tasted and made Garlic Vodka, I can attest to the fact that it's not disgusting.

Salmonella is present in many foods, even fruit and vegetables and from unsafe food handling can be present in anything you eat. I don't think raw eggs are much of a risk, but you would not know that living in the US. Also I don't think European farming practices are safer, think Mad Cow Disease.

I think that the biggest element in Salmonella presence in our food is the increase of mass production, one bad or tainted ingredient can spoil a huge batch in a big production "kitchen" and also the increase of food preparation, like convenience foods such as pre-cut veggies, fruit, salad etc. Just more opportunities for the food to be handled poorly.

Not to sidetrack things; but Mad Cow Disease arose from a practice that occurred on both sides of the Atlantic; it was identified first in the United Kingdom. Since that time, ALL bovine livestock in Great Britain is tested for Mad Cow, whereas only downer cows are tested here in North America.

This is patently untrue. Europe has incredibly different food safety standards than the US. One, Europe has made great strides in reducing the risk of BSE, by making it illegal to render "downed" (or otherwise unprofitable) animals into animal feed. The US has not done this, in spite of the fact that we have found cows with BSE in our herds. In fact the USDA has forced meat packaging plants that have set up BSE labs to shut down I can cite other examples.



While Salmonella is capable of infecting all parts of the food supply, it generally comes from chickens. It generally infects vegetables and fruit because fields receive the run-off from factory farms. Part of the reason Salmonella is so prevalent in the US is from the way the US keeps chickens (rotting in their own filth, in cramped cages), that makes it easier for Salmonella to infect other chickens and eggs. Im not sure if this happens in Europe, but the USDA warns that clean, uncracked eggshells can carry Salmonella in the egg yolk or egg whites. Additionally, according to Eric Schlosser, "Salmonella has been almost entirely eliminated from Swedish and Dutch eggs. Every year in the United States, however, more than half a million people become ill after eating eggs contaminated with Salmonella, and more than 500 people die" (Fast Food Nation, pg. 264). So theres a clear difference in how Europe handles its products vs. the way the US does.

Much of our food borne illnesses could be severely hampered if we had a uniform safety policy for food; however, we don't and our food regulatory agencies are often beholden to large businesses, who do not want to be regulated. Additionally, the regulation we do have is sporadic and ineffective. Oftentimes, businesses are simply asked to pay a fine, but not asked to change their food handling procedures.

This isn't a debate, casually speaking I feel the risks of eating a raw egg are very, very small but the attitudes in the US do not reflect this and many take advantage of these distrusts we have of our food, the government being one. I don't believe 500 people die a year from bad eggs.

Europe does have factory farms, and the idea BSE is just something in the past now as far as Europe is concerned and no longer a source for our worries is not true either, my family and I , everyone one of us, no longer qualify to give blood because our blood is no longer acceptable and up to American standards because we lived in Europe.

But again casually speaking I buy my eggs from an acquaintance of mine who keeps her own small chicken coop in her garden, we usually barter her eggs for my soup. Americans have many choices, you can buy the mass produced, but there are other options too.

I'd like to introduce a new "myth" or maybe it's a truth and see whatcha'll think. I love chili peppers. The hotter the better. In my garden I grow everything from simple green peppers clear up to Habaneros which are the reputed hottest peppers in the world. Some may know them as "Scotch bonnets". I actually prefer Serranos because I think they taste better, but I've noticed one thing about eating these things. Once you get past the heat, there is this feeling of almost euphoria. The common component in a chili pepper that makes it hot is a chemical known as capsaicin which is what pepper spray uses. My theory is that capsaicin causes the body to release endorphins - thus giving that "feel good" feeling. Anyone else experienced this or am I the only "addict" here.


Aquilla

You are right, Aquilla! It's no myth. Eating hot peppers releases endorphins.

I am semi-addicted to spicy peppers too. Love 'em.

Link

I suppose you don't have to believe a readily available fact. And while there are other options for eggs, I disagree that getting farm fresh eggs is all that easy. If you happen to live near farms, or someone who own chickens, you are lucky. Not everyone has that option.

Additionally, I didn't say that BSE was no longer a worry. The reason your blood is not acceptable has to do with incubation times, as many people don't show signs until 10 or 20 years after exposure to BSE. However, beef from Europe today is much less prone to BSE than the US. I don't mean to turn this thread into a debate, but I feel like the "food myth" that the US is safe from BSE (or that EU standards and US standards are the same) is totally false. People should know what they're eating, and the fact is that US food safety standards are incredibly low.

There is no fact I am ignoring as the idea 500 people die every year in the US from bad eggs is ridiculous and the fact you continue to claim this only further supports my idea that many take advantage of Americans distrust and discomfort with food.

So here is another myth busted, 500 people do not die every year from eating bad eggs the number I found was much, much lower:
During 1985-1995, state and territorial health departments reported 582 SE outbreaks, which accounted for 24,058 cases of illness, 2290 hospitalizations, and 70 deaths
source

Chipotle.
Living in Arizona has its benefits.
Since it follows the myth, one thing I have noticed is that since I eat a LOT of hot peppers I rarely get sick.
Chocolate chili pepper ice cream is Really really GOOD.
If none is available locally -- our local brand just stopped making it-- just sprinkle some on your ice cream.

I cited the source for my statistic. But I just reread it and it actually said 300 people died.

Also, the CDC actually reports that there are over 40,000 cases of salmonella reported each year. And that about 600 people die from it.



CDC Info on Salmonella

This is no myth.

I am extremely allergic to Green Bell Peppers. Specifically, I suppose, the capsicum. Red Bell Peppers, no issue. Jalapeños, habaneros? No issue.

If it's hot I love it! If my nose isn't sweating it's not hot.

Please ... go start a topic of your own to bring down and make all serious and statisticy. Salmonella has various strains, they know which strain is carried by raw eggs and that is the strain I linked to and the figures I quoted.

Still sticking to my egg eating ways.

Another .....green bell peppers are just unripe bell peppers, that is why they are more bitter.

All this salmonella talk has reminded me of another food myth that drives me up the wall - that 'undercooked' beef will give you food poisoning.

You gotta admit, the phrase 'undercooked' beef certainly does sound scary, and just begs for nanny-governments to step in and regulate. However, the definition of 'undercooked' by some standards have become ridiculous and insults the palette.

For example, the great state of South Carolina, has made it a law (.pdf) that all beef served to restaurant patrons must be cooked to 155° "for your protection." Thank you South Carolina, but let me decide what is for my protection.

Beef cooked to 155° is nearly burnt as far as I'm concerned. Mooing, bloody beef is just fine if the beef was good stock to begin with. Worried about getting bad beef? Then don't get beef at a place that sacrifices quantity over quality (i.e. fast food). A restaurant concerned with quality is not in the business of poisoning its customers.

And don't get me started on raw fish...

Jamie, not all beef just hamburger or ground beef, but yeah I still agree. That was the kind of thing I had in mind when I said the government also takes advanatage. I really don't want to derail this fun topic anymore, but since I am in the business I have hundreds of examples of how the government controls not only what and how we eat our food, but every step it takes to get to there.

It is just big business, and as such often sides with or makes it's preference to big business. We claim we want more family operated food producers, suppliers, and handlers but it too is just a myth because in reality the laws and regulations do not support this.

As I mentioned before.. I buy eggs from my friend, well legally I could never serve those to a customer from my commercial kitchen.