| User | Post |
|
8:15AM
Oct-13-09
|
Grant Barrett
| | Brooklyn, New York | |
| Admin
| posts 1058 |
|
|
Post edited 1:16PM – Oct-13-09 by Grant Barrett
If a restaurant menu states, "We cook off our potatoes," what in the heck does that mean? A truck driver who encountered such an announcement at a roadside cafe is still puzzling over what it means to "cook off" a tuber. He phones in to hash it out.
Listen here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download the MP3 here (3.37 MB).
To be automatically notified when audio is available, subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or another podcatching program.
…
Read the original blog post.
|
|
|
12:44PM
Oct-14-09
|
sandra50
| | |
| Member | posts 3 |
|
|
Grant Barrett said:
If a restaurant menu states, "We cook off our potatoes," what in the heck does that mean? A truck driver who encountered such an announcement at a roadside cafe is still puzzling over what it means to "cook off" a tuber. He phones in to hash it out.
Listen here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download the MP3 here (3.37 MB).
To be automatically notified when audio is available, subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or another podcatching program.
|
|
|
12:47PM
Oct-14-09
|
sandra50
| | |
| Member | posts 3 |
|
|
Sorry about that last post. I hit go accidentally. Anyway, I wonder if the potatoes were mashed. Our family drains the cooked potatoes and then sets them back on the burner and turns it off (electric) to "cook them off" before mashing them. This keeps them from being watery.
|
|
|
11:53AM
Oct-15-09
|
johng423
| | |
| Member | posts 90 |
|
|
Probably off-topic: WHAT _IN_ THE HECK – In iTunes, the description for this podcast episode says, "…what in the heck does that mean?" I have heard both "What the hell…" and "What in hell…" and "What the heck…" but not "What _in_ heck…" or "What _in the_ heck…" Can you tell us about that usage?
|
|
|
7:43PM
Oct-15-09
|
Goheels
| | |
| Member | posts 10 |
|
|
I've heard the phrase "cook off" but usually in reference to something like bacon, as in to cook off the fat.
|
|
|
5:36AM
Oct-16-09
|
Glenn
| | |
| Member | posts 692 |
|
|
I found several examples of cook the moisture off x and cook off the moisture (from x). But the examples of cook off the x do not logically fit those moist meanings because these are done after the thing is cooked through, but the context of cook off x always comes before the item is cooked through. I think it means something else, but I'm still not sure what.
|
|
|
12:32PM
Oct-17-09
|
Stephen
| | Washington state | |
| New Member | posts 2 |
|
|
I haven't run into "cook off" in this context, but I have run into the sister of the waitress who the truck driver encountered. Eons ago I stopped at a small, rural eatery on Saipan that had tofu with about everything. Tofu was not in my lexicon so I asked that waitress what tofu was. She gave me a look similar to what the truck driver got and explained to me that tofu was tofu. I have tried to remember this when someone asks me a question that sounds obvious to me. It is not obvious to the asker.
|
|
|
12:56AM
Oct-18-09
|
tromboniator
| | |
| Member | posts 45 |
|
|
I'm wondering "what in the heck" anybody finds edible in cilantro. Yuck.
|
|
|
2:27AM
Oct-18-09
|
Ron Draney
| | |
| Member | posts 222 |
|
|
tromboniator said:
I'm wondering "what in the heck" anybody finds edible in cilantro. Yuck.
Apparently there's a genetic thing wherein some people can taste it properly and some can't. Those with the defective form of the gene are unable to distinguish it from soap, while those of use with an intact sense of taste love the stuff.
(I'm an extreme case. I use so much cilantro when I cook that it qualifies as a vegetable rather than an herb.)
|
|
|
7:58PM
Oct-19-09
|
martha
| | martha | |
| Admin
| posts 802 |
|
|
Tromboniator, I have to say I'm with Ron on this. And I have to wonder if you're from the West Coast. I never met so many people who hated cilantro until I moved out here. Although I did have a pal back in Kentucky who described the taste of cilantro as the taste of "cheap crayons." But he actually LIKED that taste. De gustibus non disputandum, eh?
|
|
|
6:15PM
Nov-02-09
|
Gemma
| | |
| New Member | posts 2 |
|
|
Mightn't "cook off" just be a synonym for "cook", a bit like "cook up a batch of"?
In that case the sign would presumably be saying that they cook their own potatoes on site and/or from raw…. as opposed to buying in frozen potato products, perhaps?
I'm basing this guess just on googling, e.g. "cook off some potatoes" and "cook off potatoes". These (very few) results don't seem to show anything like potatoes being held around in a pan all day.
|
|
|
6:49AM
Nov-30-09
|
Rachel
| | |
| New Member | posts 1 |
|
|
Post edited 1:07PM – Nov-30-09 by Rachel
I think Sandra50 is on the right track. My mother often said that whenever my dad commented on how good the potatoes tasted, it was when they had boiled dry. One of my aunts recently told me that if you are going to mash potatoes, you should cook them till the liquid is gone – that way they will be fluffier. So I'm guessing that "cooking them off" means cooking till the liquid is gone.
sandra50 said:
Sorry about that last post. I hit go accidentally. Anyway, I wonder if the potatoes were mashed. Our family drains the cooked potatoes and then sets them back on the burner and turns it off (electric) to "cook them off" before mashing them. This keeps them from being watery.
|
|
Login 
Register 
Search 
Home
Print this Post 
Topic RSS 
