About Alcoholism - Alcoholism Information, Research, and Treatment
What's Not Cooking? Volume 47 Issue 3
August 1990


Many of these items are contrary to AA philosophy. Their publication here does
not mean that the Grapevine endorses or approves them; they are offered solely
for your information.

Don't blame Julia Child for leading you astray: We all were convinced that the
alcohol in the sherry she so liberally added to dishes would cook away, with
only the wine's flavor left behind. But now, it turns out, we can't have our
brandy and eat it too, because alcohol, as recent research reveals, has
tremendous staying power.

At the request of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food scientist Evelyn A.
Augustin of Washington State University in Pullman, along with her husband, Jorg
A. Augustin of the Food Research Center at the University of Idaho in Moscow,
recently tested six recipes to determine the fate of the alcohol called for.
Their results, reported at the latest annual meeting of the American Dietetic
Association, were a big surprise to everyone. They found that the burgundy in
pot roast Milano, for example, doesn't completely disappear even after two and a
half hours of simmering on the stove; that a dish of scalloped oysters, baked at
375 degrees for 25 minutes, retains 45 percent of the alcohol in the dry sherry
used; that Grand Marnier sauce, which is removed from the heat when the
called-for liqueur is added, gets hot enough to lose only 15 percent of its
alcohol.

Especially surprising, though, was what happened--or didn't happen--to the
brandy in the cherries jubilee. The recipe calls for dark sweet cherries to be
mixed with corn-starch and heated in a chafing dish to thicken. One quarter of a
cup of brandy is then ignited in a separate pan and poured over the cherries.
But even this intense flaming process, the Augustins discovered, burned off no
more than 25 percent of the alcohol. They tested the recipe several times, and
on each try the flame died, while 75 percent of the alcohol survived.


Lears

Don't listen to the people in AA; Listen to the AA in people.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]