Over the years, I’ve run into a few things that weren’t immediately-obvious to me.
One of the big ones was eating pomegranates by opening them underwater. For those not familiar, pomegranates have a lot of red seeds and white husk between them:
Cutting a pomegranate or even opening a pomegranate tends to burst at least some seeds. The seeds are sticky and stain and tend to spray juice when pierced.
However, if you just cut through the outer hull of the fruit, then open it by hand underwater in a bowl of water, any juice that would have sprayed out is just grabbed by the water. Even better, the (inedible) white husk floats, so it self-separates instead of sticking to everything.
Today, I decided to try eating a watermelon with a spoon. In the past, that’s tended to also make things spray, so I tried a grapefruit spoon, one with serrations that runs down the side. And that works great – the spoon is like a knife, can go more-cleanly through the watermelon than a regular spoon, and still lets you scoop up the watermelon.
Any other neat tips that might be unorthodox or that people might not have tried or know about?
Cut of the top of the pomegranate to see where the white “walls” between the five sections are, then cut through the skin vertically along those walls. The fruit can now be pulled apart easily into five sections that are much easier to handle so you can strip the arils from the pith gently without breaking them.
Eating green salads with chopsticks is a game-changer.
The best way to eat grapefruit is not with a spoon: rather, cut it into wedges across the segments then stick the whole wedge in your mouth and pull the flesh out from between the tough interstitial fibers with your teeth.
While not a food eating trick, chopsticks are also great when you’re deep-frying food - they allow you to firmly hold it for flipping, without piercing it or spooning oil.
Also great for whisking if you don’t have or can’t find a real whisk.