Brass pennies and so much more

woodchucker said:
Sodium Hydroxide is Lye, so why is there food grade Lye?
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Here’s why…..the fish is dried in sodium hydroxide
www.allrecipes.com

Lutefisk

Dried cod (lutefisk) is rehydrated in salt water and topped with melted butter in this Scandinavian dish with a Jell-O®-like texture.
www.allrecipes.com www.allrecipes.com
 
It was surprising to find the early pennies which are not plated don’t produce the bright shiney look like the newer pennies.
They come out a bit dull for some reason
 
Ulma Doctor said:
Here’s why…..the fish is dried in sodium hydroxide
www.allrecipes.com

Lutefisk

Dried cod (lutefisk) is rehydrated in salt water and topped with melted butter in this Scandinavian dish with a Jell-O®-like texture.
www.allrecipes.com www.allrecipes.com
Click to expand...
Food preservation in the days preceding refrigeration was always a problem. If I recall correctly, wood ashes were used as a drying agent as well as having anti bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Sodium and potassium hydroxide are a component of wood ash which lead to the practice of using lye.
 
RJSakowski said:
Food preservation in the days preceding refrigeration was always a problem. If I recall correctly, wood ashes were used as a drying agent as well as having anti bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Sodium and potassium hydroxide are a component of wood ash which lead to the practice of using lye.
Click to expand...


That's where the term "potash" comes from "Pot Ash". Literally. Soaking your ashes in water, in a pot.

Janderso said:
Why the heck do they dip dough in lye?
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It's a pretty dilute solution. A percent or a couple of percent or something. And they're not in there long. And the dough is wet, so it's not soaking it up very fast. How long you dunk it determines how thick the crust gets. The lye breaks down some particular protiens in the dough, so when when it cooks, it modifies the maillard? reaction (Chris Kimball's scientific name for bread crust turning brown. Spell check doesn't like it and I'm not looking it up...), and you get the thicker, chewey crust. All of the lye is literally consumed in it's reaction with the protiens. If there were "extra" lye, it still would still go away, you'd just have a thicker crust.


Fun thing- We're all here thinking about lye as "sodium hydroxide", and tangenting to potassium hydroxide. But all of the alkali metals will make a lye. We're just used to those one or two, which for nearly all intents and purposes are interchangable, but it's a pretty loose term. There's six or eight others. But now I'm stuck and you made me look it up. It's six. Lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, and francium. They all make lye. And while I was out I fixed the other word for you too.
 
Ulma Doctor said:
The bagels’ leathery outer crust is produced from the dip in lye
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I love Winco bagels. They toast up real nice yet they are light and chewey at the same time.
When I was working in Florida, (1982-3) there was a restaurant called, Brothers in Ft. Lauderdale.
The best thing on the menu that I loved was tuna salad on a toasted salt bagel. Big hunks of kosher salt
Sounds awful but it was delicious.
I've never seen salt bagels west of the Rockies.

This brass penny thing went straight to food :)
 
Janderso said:
That may explain why I don’t see any Norwegian restaurants around. :)
Just kidding. I’m sure Lutefisk is to die for.
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I'm a Norwegian. I remember having it at Christmas time in my younger years. I think more than anything
that lutefisk is part of the tradition and not something that is particularly satisfying to the palate. That's how
I remember it. I don't go to grocery stores seeking it out and slithering it down as a delicacy but keep it as
a fond memory of Christmas's past.
 
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