Corduroy Orange

Learning everything Scott Baio knows about bread making.

I think we all realize that extruded loaves of supermarket bread aren’t very good, but a day of baking bread with Larry Lagattuta teaches you (among other things) what utter crap they actually are. “Our bodies can’t digest unincorporated flour,” explains Larry while describing why you want to be frugal with the flour you put down on the table while you shape your loaves, “but the only way they can get the dough soft enough to plop into the pans in the bread factory is by adding lots of water. Water makes it sticky, so they coat the insides of their tubes with flour so the dough will go through. The result of that is, lots of undigestable flour winds up in that bread,” the end result being that our bodies rebel against the onslaught and develop allergies to wheat. (more…)

Dear Mr. Corduroy,

This is a strange question. I recently read somewhere that depending on the hand you use to eat with, food tastes differently. If you are right handed, and normally eat with your right hand, then by switching and using your left hand to eat with, it will open different taste pathways by using the other hemisphere of your brain. After testing this, I have come to the conclusion that it is a hoax. I was wondering what was the most ridiculous hoax you had heard of concerning food/eating.

Ambidextrous Andy

Dear Andy:

I’ve got to admit, I’ve never heard anything like that before. The concept seems somewhat preposterous, especially since hands are quite often used interchangeably when eating. Think about when you’re cutting a steak: you probably hold the fork in your left hand and the knife in your right hand. Once you’ve cut a chunk off, you may or may not lay the knife down, switch the hand you’re using for the fork, and then eat the piece of steak. Then again, you might not, especially if you’re European, where the general consensus on table manners is that there’s no sense in playing patty-cake with your fork, thus they maintain the fork in their left hand and the knife in their right, just as the utensils are laid out for them before the meal (they’re so pragmatic!).

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