Chef Know-It-All

Greetings and welcome to the best part of this whole website! What makes it so good? Me, Chef Know-It-All. I rule the culinary school!  I’m a professional chef, I know everything about food and how to cook it, I’m super-smart, I’m charming and I’m handsome. Pretty much, I’m the greatest guy ever.

So if there’s anything that you’ve been wanting to know about food just send me your questions and I’ll set you on the path to the wonderful world of culinary genius. 

Here’s my first batch of freshly baked answers to your culinary queries!

Question: I’ve heard people refer to various things as “the best thing since sliced bread.” Exactly how long ago did sliced bread come along? 

Answer: First off, my student, it’s important to know that we are referring to pre-packaged sliced loaves of bread. Clearly, people had been slicing bread at home, with knives, prior to the appearance of pre-packaged sliced bread (And before slicing it they probably tore it into messy slices. Before tearing, Chef Know-It-All assumes people just bit into the loaf).But in 1928, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, who is considered the father of sliced bread (it’s unclear who the mother is), started the slicing of bread after his invention of a slicing and wrapping machine. Baker’s at that time were very skeptical of his idea but quickly adapted to it after sales at the first site to use his machine at the CHILLICOTHE BAKING COMAPANY in Chillicothe, Mo. went through the roof.

So when people say something is “the best thing since sliced bread” – they, perhaps without knowing it, mean since 1928.  On a side note, the best thing before sliced bread was ragtime piano. 

Question: I bought some slices of “cheese” from the store the other day, but they were labeled as “pasteurized processed cheese food.” So is that really cheese or what?

Answer: It’s really close to being cheese, but according to the government, it isn’t quite.  There are laws that the dairy industry must follow in order to sell their products and not deceive consumers. For example, in order for a company to sell something that says “cheddar cheese” on it, it must contain at least 50% milk fat, and have no more than 39% moisture content and meet certain aging/maturing guidelines (I’ve also met my self-imposed aging/maturing guidelines. That’s why I’m so smart). Pasteurized process cheese food is made partly from cheese and partly from other ingredients like vegetable oil and water!)  It must contain at least 51% of the cheese ingredient by weight, have a moisture content less than 44%, and have at least 23% milk fat.

Question: Why don’t oil and water mix and why should I care?

Answer: Oil and water don’t mix because of the Oil and Water Treaty of 1936 which forbids it. Not really, they don’t mix because they can’t stand each other…well, more accurately, they don’t mix because water really likes itself and oil is completely indifferent. Chef Know-it-all was involved similar relationship once, but that’s a story for another column.

An 8 oz. glass of water, (which incidentally you should be drinking eight of each day) is actually made up of about 7,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. All of those water molecules/pieces are attracted to each other (it’s actually called polarity), much like two magnets are attracted to each other. On the other hand the oil isn’t really attracted to itself or the water much.

The same holds true for water and oil. The oil can’t get between the water pieces because the water is attracted to itself too much (perhaps you have siblings that behave in a similar fashion).

Oh, and you should care because it’s fun to be smarter than everyone else…and I know from experience.