Sirius XM Podcasts.
Sueta, why bother with the air fryer if you're just using it on regular oven mode?
Is it just because it's smaller and heats faster?
Okay, I need you to get an air fryer, Dan.
It is so good and so useful.
Do you not have one?
No.
It's a small oven.
It doesn't take so much time to heat.
It's a much more efficient space.
But I have a toaster oven.
I don't like kitchen appliances.
I just finally broke down and bought a food processor.
New York City living, one can safely guess that you don't have endless... I live in the suburbs.
I have a whole house now.
Oh, are you serious?
I got a garage.
Oh, you should get an air fryer.
For the level of food nerd you are, you need to get an air fryer.
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies.
It's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
And Happy New Year!
I hope you had a relaxing and delicious holiday season with family and or friends.
And I got some good news to help you start the new year on the right foot.
Listen up.
We have two live Sporkful tapings coming up.
March 19th in Brooklyn with Kenji Lopez-Alt.
And May 1st in Boston, guest TBD.
Links for tickets are at sporkful.com slash events.
Can't wait to see you.
All right, let's jump into it.
This week, we are opening the phone lines, but not just for any old kind of issues.
We are taking your food science questions and arguments.
So put on your nerd glasses and fire up those Bunsen burners.
This is going to be fun.
All that said, look, science is not my strong suit.
I know a bit, but not enough.
I need some help.
First up, you've heard her here on The Sporkful before talking about phase change and Katya Pepe.
She's an industrial engineer, a columnist for the Hindustan Times, a contributor to Serious Eats and the woman behind the Substack and Instagram feed.
Upgrade My Food.
Joining us from Austin, Texas, it's Sweta Sivakumar.
Hello, Sweta.
Hi, Dan.
How are you doing?
Welcome back.
Thank you.
And joining me right here in the studio in Midtown Manhattan.
You know him as the editorial director of Serious Eats, where he's worked for more than a decade.
He's also worked in professional kitchens in some of New York's top restaurants, starting at Chanterelle when he was just 13.
Is that right, Daniel?
Yeah, that is.
You must be almost 16 now.
15 and a half.
Let's not.
I'm getting there.
He's also publicly called himself a human garbage can, which I think is a feeling we can all relate to.
It's accurate.
Daniel Gritzer, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me.
It's great to have you both.
Sweta, you recently wrote an article for Serious Eats detailing several experiments you ran to try to find the best way to get seasoning to stick to homemade popcorn.
First of all...
I don't know that I've ever heard of a better example of service journalism.
This is the research that our world needs.
I feel like it's become very common.
A lot of people coming up with all kinds of spice combos for popcorn and you try them out and you finish the popcorn.
And what's in the bottom of the bowl?
80 percent of the seasoning.
Right.
Yeah.
So what did you find in your research?
When I started making the popcorn at home, I realized that there was a lot of salt stuck at the bottom of the pan that I was making it in and also the lid.
So the salt was splattering everywhere and none of it was sticking to the popcorn itself.
Now, you could argue that you could add the salt back in after the popcorn has popped.
But remember, the popcorn surface is so smooth, it slides right off.
So it's really hard to get the salt to spread evenly throughout the popcorn.
So I started testing different ways of spritzing seasonings.
And if it's anything water-based, that's a definite no-no.
So just to understand one thing, Swetha, you're making popcorn in a pot on the stove, right?
Sort of like the old-fashioned way, not with a popcorn maker.
Yes.
And is there oil typically in the pan?
Yes.
Okay.
There's a little bit of oil.
Now, Daniel recommended that I add a lot of oil and try that.
I did that as well, and it changes the crispiness of the popcorn.
The popcorn becomes a great texture when you add extra oil, but that does not change the amount of seasoning that gets stuck to the popcorn.
So thanks for nothing, Daniel.
Yeah, I tried.
And, in case it wasn't clear, you two both work at Serious Eats, so this is why you guys are often collaborating.
Okay, so you did all this research, you did all these experiments.
After all your hard work Sueta, what did you determine is the best way to get seasoning to stick to homemade popcorn?
I would hate to make you go out and buy an ingredient, but popcorn salt is such a game changer.
I have bought it and I absolutely love it because it is in micron size.
It is like one tenth the size of a regular salt.
And that makes it... so much easier to get it to stick to individual popcorn pieces.
So even Samin Nostrad does that, where she puts the popcorn into a box and she grinds up the salt with some spices, puts the whole thing inside a box, shakes it up or a bag and then it gets coated.
So much more better than just kind of like taking an open bag and sprinkling it on top and throwing a Hail Mary pass, hoping it sticks to some of those kernels.
Right, okay.
So for popcorn enthusiasts out there, Get yourself some popcorn salt.
Daniel, let's see if you can keep up with that.
No, I can't.
I can't.
What's something you've been working on lately?
All right.
I just wrapped up testing on something that I've been curious about for a long time.
I thought I knew the answer.
My testing showed I didn't fully – I wasn't fully right in my predictions.
So you know when you'll see a recipe for, like a bread recipe and they say, oh well, you have to add this much water and then –
Add more water, a tablespoon at a time, until you get to whatever the cue is, you know?
Right, like until you press it and it bounces back or whatever it might be.
Yeah, like sticky but not wet or, you know, whatever the language is.
And the folk wisdom here that I've always heard is...
This is largely because you have to adjust to the ambient humidity.
You know, it's a very humid day.
You're going to need less water, because there's all this water in the air, that the dough and, I think, in particular, the flour, it's the primary ingredient.
Versus the other side of the coin.
If it's like the dead of winter in the northern part of the country, the air could be so dry.
You need more water.
Okay, so yeah, I've heard that too.
So I was convinced that this was just like utter BS.
I was sort of going into this with the assumption that I was going to do some tests and I was going to find that ambient humidity is just a total non-issue.
And I've been waiting for the real cold weather to hit because I needed the air to be dry enough in much of my apartment that I could set up a bowl of flour there and then have another room where I got a humidifier going.
Yeah.
What's the device that measures humidity?
Is it a barometer?
A hygrometer.
A hygrometer.
Indeed I did.
I don't think we need to hear the rest.
I think you've proven that you're a nerd, but let's hear the end anyway, Daniel.
Ambient humidity can affect how much water the flower is holding.
It's measurable.
It's pretty minor.
I think for most people I would say it's one of the least important factors in why your dough is not right.
If you have a scale and you know it.
You know you have a properly developed recipe and you know what your target hydration is.
You measure it properly.
The ambient humidity is going to really become almost a non-issue, but I can't say it's a non-issue.
And if you are a really experienced baker and you're dialed in, you may notice the differences based on the ambient humidity.
So it's not totally an imagined thing.
So not total BS, but also not as big of a deal as a lot of people say.
Exactly.
Okay.
You got it.
All right.
Well, you have both proven yourselves, at least to me.
Was that too much?
I'm sure not.
All right.
You two ready to take some listener questions about various food science issues, disagreements and all that good stuff?
100 percent.
Let's do it.
All right.
First up, we have some questions about sweet treats.
Here we go.
Hi Sporkful team.
This is Kat.
I'm calling from Oak Park, Illinois.
And my food hot take is that ice cream is best enjoyed with a glass of room temperature water on the side.
The reason being is that when I eat ice cream, my taste buds freeze up and then I actually can't taste any of the flavor notes.
I just feel the sensation of eating something cold and sweet.
And so, in order to optimize my ice cream eating experience, I defrost my taste buds with a glass of room temperature water in between bites, so that my taste buds will unfreeze and I can taste actual flavors.
People think I'm a little bit goofy here, but I truly believe my way is the way to enjoy ice cream to the max.
And I believe ice cream science will back me up.
Thanks a lot.
Bye-bye.
All right.
This is very interesting.
Swetha, I want to start with you because last time you were on, we talked about your two-ingredient mango ice cream which, by the way, I went home and made and it was phenomenal.
And then my wife was away for work, and when she came home she was so impressed that the kids and I had made ice cream.
So what are your thoughts on this idea, just as a general philosophy, that when ice cream is very cold, that it might reduce your taste sensations.
I absolutely love this idea because I'm the kind of person you give me a bowl of food and I take it my diligent duty to finish it before, like a timer runs off or something.
I like to warm up my ice cream in the microwave for a few seconds.
Yes, I do the same thing.
Hold up, explain that a little more.
I'm one of those people who can sit and wait and wait for the ice cream to melt.
That's right.
Just to make it scoopable, you mean?
If it's softer, it's more flavorful and it's not so ice cold.
And it's just.
I think texture-wise, ice cream is more pleasurable to eat when it's a little bit melty.
I feel like you've got to just take it to its logical conclusion and drink custard.
I actually have an idea that you would completely melt ice cream and then pour it on top of a scoop of hard ice cream as a sauce.
That's a great idea.
Thank you.
You know how, when you put hot fudge on the ice cream, the layer that's right under the hot fudge is the best layer.
Yes.
It's got that semi-melted consistency.
So I think, if you can wait for that consistency, like a person like me, this glass of water idea is absolutely wonderful.
I am all for it.
The glass of water helps you with your tongue, but it doesn't help with getting the ice cream meltier.
That's what the microwave is for.
Or time, if you're like, you know, very patient, which is not me and Sueta.
I'm going to try it, but I love the idea.
Daniel, quick thoughts on this?
Yeah, it's a really interesting idea because of the method that this caller is using to try to warm the ice cream up.
Instead of warming the ice cream, she's warming her mouth in between bites.
The warmer things are, the more volatile they are, the more the molecules are moving.
And volatile in this case is a good thing.
It means that the flavors and the aromas are kind of moving around more, and so they're going up your nose.
Yeah, the warmer it is, they're going up your nose and they're probably interacting more rapidly with your taste buds on your tongue, which would be just perceiving sweetness.
Right.
I'm 100% on board with this idea.
All right, well, thank you, Kat, for that suggestion that we all clearly love.
Let's move on to the next one.
Hi, Sporkful team.
This is Morgan from Detroit.
So last night I was enjoying a childhood favorite dessert of a root beer float and I noticed a couple texture peculiarities that I have questions about.
For one, I love the texture of the foam that appears when you make a soda float.
It's more airy and persistent than normal soda foam.
So like, you know, normally when you pour soda, the foam disappears as the drink settles.
But with root beer floats the foam stays around.
For a Secondly, adding soda seems to change the texture of the ice cream.
I notice like kind of icier patches of ice cream as I'm eating it if it's mixed with soda.
I'm wondering also why this happens, why it seems to crystallize more.
Thank you so much.
So a lot to unpack here, Daniel.
Let's start with the idea that the foam is different in root beer float versus other flavors like Coke or Sprite.
Yeah, okay.
So there are a lot of variables here.
I think there's brand variation.
There's how is the soda dispensed.
Some brands just have more carbonation than others.
Yeah.
Is it coming out of a fountain?
There's a lot going on there.
But I think Morgan has stumbled on something that is real, which is that a lot of root beers do have extra ingredients that not all sodas have.
I think cream soda also has it.
These are additives that increase bubble formation for a foamier head.
There's an ingredient.
It's an extract from the soap bark tree.
I did once interview like a soda expert and I asked him like, what even is root beer?
How do you define it?
And he said, traditionally, it's soda made with roots, barks and herbs.
Because of these different additives, it's possible that root beer holds a bubble, would be fizzier.
But in general it's true with soda floats that whatever the soda is, you get this like extra foam.
That's super light.
What's happening there?
Yeah, I think there you're just amplifying this effect because ice cream is largely cream.
And if you think, well, what is cream capable of?
Whipping.
It's capable of holding a more stable bubble.
There's something inherent to cream.
It has proteins.
It has fats.
It takes a lot of energy for a bubble to hold.
And so I think the addition of those proteins and those fats from the cream are amplifying—
The capacity for the liquid to foam and hold a stable foam for longer.
And then root beer, even more so because of these additives.
So I'm going to stick with you for the topic of ice cream here.
So the ice cream also, as Morgan notes, changes.
It kind of crystallizes a bit inside the soda.
What's happening there?
Ice cream is a colloid of three phases.
It has the solid from the ice crystals, it has the liquid from the sugar solution and it has the bubbles that are trapped in.
So when the soda hits it's going to go in between them and kind of like the phase change of the ice crystals to back to liquid.
And because it's still in the 30 degree Fahrenheit zone, it's going to try and combine itself back.
And that's why I think it's kind of doing these quick reactions right inside as you pour it inside the glass.
It melts a tiny bit and then refreezes like almost like within a few seconds.
Yeah.
That was my best guess.
Okay.
Final question on this topic.
What is the best way to consume a soda float?
Straw, spoon, or both?
Straw for me.
I think I'm a spoon person.
Sueta, don't you?
If you do straw, don't you run into the issue that you finish the soda and then you still have half a scoop of ice cream in the bottom?
Then you just add more soda in hand.
To me, I think 100.
You need a spoon because you want to manage those ratios and you want ice cream and soda in every bite.
Don't yuck my stuff.
Look, you do it however you want, Sueta.
I would encourage you to try it with a spoon, though.
Do it however you want.
It's just you're wrong.
All right, one more voice memo for this segment.
Hi, Sportful.
I'm Thomas.
I'm Pat.
And we're calling you from Brooklyn, New York.
We're calling about a habit my dad's had for quite some time with his soda, probably for about 40 years.
Before I pour soda.
If I take the ice right out of the freezer and I pour my soda directly on ice, all the carbonation goes away.
So I discovered I put my ice in a glass, I go to the sink, I rinse it off with cold water, then I pour the soda and my carbonation doesn't go away.
So what do you guys think?
Any validity to this?
Have we discovered the latest and greatest upgrade to your soda routine?
Thanks so much.
First off, can I just say that I hope that you and all our listeners appreciate that we started with a call about ice cream, then went to a call about the combination of ice cream and soda and now we've transitioned to a call about soda.
I mean, the transitions here are seamless.
The theme is consistent.
And the hidden theme here is bubbles.
Right.
We're back on bubbles.
So Daniel, there's actually a recipe on Serious Eats for nimbu soda Indian-style lime soda that talks about this exact thing, this idea of rinsing your ice.
So what gives?
So yeah, that recipe is by Sho Spaeth, the former editor at Serious Eats, who grew up, at least partially, in New Delhi.
And, indeed, rinsing the ice with water is a critical step in that recipe to maintain carbonation.
This is very real.
So why?
Why does rinsing ice maintain carbonation?
Nucleation sites.
Okay.
Words of the day.
What's nucleation?
Why is it doing something here?
It takes a lot of energy for a bubble to form, especially when they're so small, because it has to do with the ratio of the surface area of the bubble to its volume.
Because the bubble is under pressure from the water, whatever liquid is around it.
And so the bubble has to be strong enough to not burst under that pressure.
That barrier of bubble formation is so high that it can happen all by itself in a nucleation site-free environment.
But it is extremely difficult to to make it happen.
So what is a nucleation site?
It's sort of these if you could look under a microscope at the surface of your vessel, or the grains of salt or anything like that, pieces of dust.
These are irregularities.
Anything that makes the surface of the glass rough.
I'm going to go ahead and extrapolate that also.
Like ice when it comes out of the freezer sort of has a rough surface.
So the more rough surfaces that the soda is touching against, the more nucleation and the more bubbles you have forming faster, the more the carbonation is escaping.
Is rushing out of there.
Got it.
Exactly.
Think of those champagne flutes where they will deliberately make one nice big nucleation site.
It's manufactured on purpose this way.
And you get that one dominant stream of bubbles coming up.
Oh, so they put like a little divot in the bottom.
Yeah, they put more imperfect surface feature in a glass.
So then, am I understanding correctly that rinsing your ice makes the ice smoother, which reduces the number of nucleation sites in the glass and therefore reduces the speed at which bubbles form?
And that way you don't have your thing fizzing and losing all your carbonation right away.
You got it.
Swetha, have you ever had a nimbu soda?
Yes.
In your experience, is the ice rinsing a really common practice for these sodas in India?
Yeah.
Yeah, I've seen them do that.
The street vendors do it.
Really?
So this is widely known.
Widely known, yep.
All right, well, I'm glad now we know.
All right.
We're going to take a short break, you two.
But we have Grace in Minneapolis standing by on hold.
When we come back she's going to join us live to ask for help in a longstanding argument with her husband about the best way to store fresh bread.
Then later, is there ever a reason not to use the convection setting on your oven?
We'll discuss.
Daniel and Sueto, will you stick around?
Sure will.
Yes.
All right.
We'll be right back.
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Yummy.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman.
You know, often we get emails from you, our lovely listeners, saying hey, whatever happened to that episode from years ago?
I really loved that one.
I want to hear it again.
Or I want my friends to hear it and they're newer to the show.
We have a service for you.
It's called Our Friday Reheats.
Every Friday we pull an episode out of the deep freezer and reheat it for you.
Last week we reheated a parody.
This is one of my all-time favorite episodes.
It's a parody of Serial, the true crime investigative podcast.
We look into the true story of a woman whose lunch kept getting stolen from the office fridge.
It's hilarious and riveting.
You've got to check it out.
We also recently reheated my interview with the legendary singer Patti LaBelle, who says she's an even better cook than she is a singer.
Hard to believe, but listen to the episode to hear more about that.
We even have calls, episodes from way back when, including someone asking about what cheese you'd pick if only one cheese could remain on Earth.
Check out all of our Friday reheats wherever you found this episode.
As we turn back to more of your calls, one quick note we are already looking for callers for our next one of these episodes.
It can be food science, but it doesn't have to be.
If you have any kind of food feud with a friend or loved one, I want to hear from you.
Drop me a line at hello at sporkful.com.
All right.
I'm joined once again now by Daniel Gritzer from Serious Eats.
Hi, Daniel.
Hello, hello.
And Sweta Sivakumar, also of Serious Eats and the Hindustan Times.
Hello, Sweta.
Hi there.
Time now to turn to a live caller joining us on the show.
Hi, who's this?
Hi, my name is Grace from Minneapolis.
Hey, Grace.
Say hi to my friends, Daniel and Sweta.
Daniel, Sweta, hello.
What's the issue, Grace?
How can we help you?
Sure.
So my husband and I have a longstanding argument about bread and how we can best preserve bread in our house.
Once every three to six months or so, my husband, who has really great taste in food, will go on a jag and he will visit one of our local artisan bakeries and he ends up buying maybe three or four big loaves of bread.
Now we have a small family.
It's myself, my husband, and my 12 year old son.
And he'll bring these breads home and they'll be put on the counter.
And I am so delighted.
But at the same time, I'm facing this decision.
How do I best preserve these breads for longer term use throughout the week?
My idea is let's put the loaves in the freezer that we want to save for later, maybe three or four days from now, and then cut into those loaves that we want to eat immediately.
He is very adamantly opposed to putting bread in the freezer.
He says that he can tell when bread is frozen and then rethought, or thought that he claims that maybe dries out.
I don't notice a difference on that.
So my conundrum and our argument is does bread really dry out in the freezer more quickly than it does on the countertop, or vice versa?
How do we eat fresh bread or preserve it for longer?
All right.
This is a great question.
But can I ask one quick sort of like logistical question here, Grace?
Why is he only going to the bake?
Is the bakery like four hours away?
Why is he only going like once every three to six months?
Why does he just go once a week and get one loaf?
You know, probably our busy schedules.
Let's just say this.
Even if he were to go once a week, he'd still get three or four left.
Sounds like my husband.
All right.
So, Sweta, let me start with you.
When you put fresh bread in the freezer, what happens to it?
So when you put something in the freezer, especially starches, whether it's cooked rice or bread, the water content inside the bread will face transition.
It will become just frozen.
And so when you take it back and thaw it, it's going to go back into water form.
If you let it sit in the fridge instead...
What happens is starch, as the temperature drops, it undergoes a process called retrogradation.
The starch molecules start aligning, especially the amylose, aligning themselves with each other, kicking the water out.
So the drying out actually happens more so in the refrigerator.
And in the freezer, it's like a snapshot in time.
The water molecules just freeze and becomes ice.
I'm curious, Grace, I don't want to doubt your husband's discerning palate.
But...
Maybe he really can tell.
I mean, and surely freshly baked high quality bread is going to be at its peak.
When it's fresh.
When it's fresh.
The freezer is not better than that.
But what do you end up doing?
Do you put it in the freezer?
Who wins this argument?
If I choose to follow what he wishes for the bread, I will leave it on the counter in the plastic bag that it was wrapped in from the bakery.
Sometimes I can get away with sneaking a loaf into the freezer and then pulling it out before he notices that it's thawed.
And then he won't say anything when he eats it.
That's pretty damning.
Now I'm starting to doubt his balance.
What is the packet that it's covered in?
Typically, it's like a loose plastic bag.
If it comes in paper, like a lot of really nice artisanal baguettes come in like a paper sheath.
I will transfer that to a more loose bread bag.
Got it.
Sueta, I want to ask you this question.
If you are going to keep bread on the counter, rank for me from best to worst of the options of how to store it.
So if you do like a paper bag, it'll really dry out super quickly.
And so most of the supermarket bags that you find, usually you'll find there are plastic bags, because then the water transportation rate is a lot reduced.
And so you want to hold the moisture in, but not so much that you get mold in it.
So you kind of have to balance out the—let the kind of the bread breathe, but also you shouldn't let too much of the air out.
That's why you'll find the baguettes especially with the ones with the—comes, with the paper bag dries out super quickly, because then the starch just—it's just like rice.
You know, you put the grain of rice outside, it starts to get really hard like a—
And also a baguette has a lot of surface area in relation to volume.
So things can escape from a baguette even more so.
So is loose plastic bag the best?
Because it sounds like what you're saying, Swetha is that too tight of a saran wrap?
Plastic wrap could lead to mold.
So is loose plastic bag the best?
Loose and thick plastic bag.
It has to be a thicker one.
Even in plastic bags, there are different variations of oxygen and water transportation rates.
So it has to be that nice thick ones.
I do have another question, which is, how are you reheating the bread?
When you take it out, do you just defrost it and then eat it?
Do you put it back in the oven?
And similarly, if it's on the counter, because what you do with it is also very important.
Most of the time I'd say I would take it out of the freezer and just let it sit on the counter without any heat applied or anything for maybe about an hour, so that it comes back to room temperature.
Daniel, is that the best way to defrost bread?
Put it on the counter at room temp?
I would lean towards reheating it.
From frozen?
I haven't tested it, but you might want to let it defrost before you throw it in.
There's tricks where you can wet the crust with water.
I've done that.
I've done it.
I've given it a little shower and then put it in the oven.
That tends to work really well.
That kind of delays the, it prevents the crust that's already probably pretty baked from browning too fast or burning and buys you more time.
And Sueta, do you know like so the starch doesn't really stale retrograde when it's in the freezer, but it maybe still, when it defrosts, is firmer, do you think?
And that the heat kind of replasticizes the starch or am I just BSing here?
No, no, you're right.
I think you definitely want to reheat.
It's just like you take frozen waffles.
You know when you reheat it that starches are best served at about 60 degrees Celsius.
You have to toast it and then you serve it at, you know, you serve it back.
So you reheat.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you reheat the bread that sort of undoes A lot of but not all of that retrogradation of the starch and you get back to that chewy texture that you would have had when it was fresh.
Yes.
And also you want to avoid freezer burn.
And that's the other thing I wanted to ask you Grace, is that when you put it in the freezer, make sure you have those thick plastic.
And sometimes I double wrap my bread when I put it in the freezer, just so that I have no freezer burn on it.
I always double bag my bread when I put it in the freezer.
Grace, how are you storing bread when you freeze it?
Oh, I will just do a single layer of plastic.
I really like your suggestion of double bagging.
All right.
So, I mean, I think we can feel the direction this is headed in.
But Daniel, what are your thoughts on this?
I absolutely agree with you Grace, that if you cannot eat your fresh bread right away, freezing it well-wrapped and also reheating it nicely afterwards is the surest road to enjoying it later.
And the fridge is the worst.
Right.
The fridge is worse than the counter.
Yeah.
The fridge is terrible.
Sueta?
I'm team Grace all the way.
Go ahead and do it.
And subject your husband to a blind test.
I think that would prove the point better.
Do a blind tasting test and get him to disprove the theory, rather than you trying to prove the theory.
Wait, you have such a good point.
We are a very pro-blind taste test family.
So I think he'd be on board with that.
What other blind taste tests have you done?
We've done blind case tests for cider, for root beer, for cheese, for yogurt.
We've done a lot.
Wow.
And yet not for the biggest point of contention in your relationship?
I know I'm ashamed that I didn't think of it before.
I think also it'd be fun if you just gave him like five different breads and they were all had been frozen.
Hey, no tricks.
That's a classic fun blind taste test trick.
Well, Grace in Minneapolis, thanks so much for your call.
I hope that you enjoy your next loaf of fresh bread, whether or not it has been previously frozen.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Great work helping Grace in Minneapolis.
It's time to move on now.
Are you two ready for the lightning round?
I don't know.
I'm scared.
Well, you should be.
Okay.
Derek asks, is there ever a reason not to use the convection setting on your oven?
Sueta.
You don't use it for baking.
You don't use it on things that doesn't need quick drying on the surface.
Do you want a crispy surface?
Convection is your friend.
If you don't want a crispy surface, you want a moist surface on the top.
You don't want to use the convection.
Daniel?
My colleague at Series Eats, Leah Collins, just published something about baking cookies in her air fryer.
And I should note, just in case people don't know, an air fryer is essentially just like a super convection-y convection oven.
Precisely.
It's a wonderful invention.
But yeah.
So if the recipe doesn't say convection, it wasn't developed with convection.
I wouldn't turn it on, particularly with baking.
But you can bake cookies with convection because Leah does it.
I feel like a great cookie should have sort of concentric circles of different textures.
So the very edge perimeter should be crispy.
And then you should get, as you move towards the center, you want chewy.
And then right in the bullseye, you want gooey.
I love that.
And if you're cooking the cookies in an air fryer and getting more of that drying and crisp and cooking it a little faster, I can imagine accentuating the variation in those textures.
I can imagine that that may be right.
All right.
Maybe I do know something about food science.
All right, let's keep the lightning round moving.
Allison in Quebec has an issue.
She says I'm eating a traditional Eastern Quebec salmon pie for lunch which I bought frozen at the farmer's market.
The instructions say to cook from frozen, but the bottom pastry is soggy and basically raw and it's not getting baked.
I've tried defrosting the pie pre-bake, but that doesn't seem to help.
Are pre-made frozen pies just doomed to have soggy bottoms, Daniel?
So one thing she could do is put a baking stone or a baking steel or even a cast iron pan in the oven and preheat that with the oven so it's really hot and has that retained heat.
And put the, I assume the frozen pie is in an aluminum pie plate, put that against the hot surface.
That is going to conduct more heat directly into the base of the pie and will increase the chances that she gets some crisping.
Yeah, I would expand on Daniel's idea, which is basically you want to conduct heat to the bottom of the pie.
And either you could do that with his cast iron stash pizza plate idea or you could just increase the temperature of the oven going in and then maybe put a foil on top.
And then you decrease the oven a little bit to the regular temperature.
That way you kind of get the kickstart for the bottom.
All right.
One more on the lightning round.
Macy in Virginia asks, why are some spicy foods like wasabi felt more in my nose than on my tongue?
And why are spicy peppers felt more on my tongue than in my nose?
Daniel?
There's two different molecules at play, or families of molecules anyway.
So for hot peppers, chili peppers, it's capsaicin.
And for wasabi, which is in the mustard and brassica family, it is, oh boy, isothiocyanins, I think.
With capsaicin, it's a contact.
It gets on your tongue.
It...
It's the physical contact of the hot thing on your tongue.
Primarily.
It can vaporize and you can get kind of burning from, I think, capsaicin in the air.
But primarily, it's on your tongue.
It interacts with the pain receptors on your tongue, sends the signal to your brain that you are being hurt.
You're not technically being hurt.
But it's telling you you are and you then have a pain reaction, a pain experience and an inflammatory reaction, potentially.
With the wasabi.
The isophyllocyanins say that three times fast.
They are volatile, they float up into your nasal passages and they also interact with your pain receptors in your nasal passages.
So capsaicin, hot peppers, it works more through physical contact.
And wasabi, mustard, those things work more through airborne transmission.
Yeah, that's definitely the tendency.
All right.
Well, we'll end on that.
Before we wrap up, I want to remind everyone listening that we're always looking for folks to call in for these call-in episodes with food-related disagreements and disputes, your hot takes or questions, questions.
If you've got something to say, drop me an email or a voice memo to hello at sporkful.com.
My thanks to everybody who called in and to Sweta Sivakumar and Daniel Gritzer.
Find both of them on serious eats.com.
Sweta also has her sub stack and Instagram called upgrade my food.
Daniel's Instagram is at D Gritzer.
Thank you so much to both of you.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you, Dan.
And while you're following people on Instagram, hey, follow me.
Sometimes I post video clips from our interviews.
I post about things I'm cooking, hanging out with my kids, weird things from my childhood.
You never know what's going to be there.
Follow me at The Sporkful.
Next week on the show.
French reporter Samia Bazil has always hated the idea of eating popcorn at the movies.
So she does a deep dive into how it even became a thing, then sees if she can be convinced to love it.
That's next week.
While you wait for that one, check out our Friday reheats, when we share some of our most beloved, most classic Sporkful episodes, as well as last week's show with actor Stanley Tucci talking about his classic movie Big Night and his more recent CNN series about Italy.
That one's up now.
And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
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And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXMcom slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
It was edited by Camille Stanley.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcast.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And this is Beth Johnson calling from Antigua, Guatemala, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
