So awkward, but come on it says right there on the package to wash those mushrooms or whatever it is… You’re not their mom but you don’t wanna eat feces or whatever ended up on the produce. A quick rinse is never going to be perfect but it’s better than nothing.
In the absence of legitimate suggestions, commiseration is welcome too 😉
“Do you mind if I wash these? I’m allergic to pesticides, even in trace amounts.”
No need to fabricate some lie, as that might backfire at some point.
“Hey I would be more comfortable if the vegetables were washed. Do you mind if I wash them?”
Or just offer to help and start washing them.
The important thing is to not make it about them, but about you. Most people don’t get offended when you make it all about yourself, and not them doing something wrong.
“Then you’re going to have a bad time, because they are on the inside too and your quick rinse only probably gets rid of half on the outside.”
Just offer to wash the vegetables, who says no to that?
There are a lot of people who think, largely due to misinformed cooking shows, that you shouldn’t wash mushrooms, just wipe them off.
If you want them washed, maybe say “Hey, I can help out by washing those for you.”
As far as I’ve found, they’re both right. You shouldn’t have to wash your mushrooms, but it’s not a bad idea if you’re not buying fancy mushrooms.
The generic button mushroom variants you’re probably getting at the grocery store are grown in compost, which often contains some manure - ie poops.
But before growing mushrooms it’s pasteurized. Mycelium is picky, and fairly easily out-competed by other stuff, so to make sure you’re just growing mushrooms and not bacteria you basically have to sterilize the medium they’re grown in.
But those mushrooms are often grown in open beds, and harvested by hand. And that means they get that poop dirt right up on them. Will it immediately give you super botulism? Probably not but it’s still kinda ick.
Fancier mushroom varieties from smaller cultivars are the ones that actually don’t really need washed and often shouldn’t be. They’re grown in highly sterile environments and they fruit out of a container, so they never touched the poop. And that’s if they even used compost - lots use straw or wood.
If you do decide to wash your button mushrooms it’s not a big deal, they aren’t actually sponges, and they don’t absorb as much water as some cooking shows say. If they get soggy it probably means they’re old, try putting them in the fridge for a few hours uncovered. It’s basically a dehydrator.
Not only should you wash them, you should also start a sautee with a couple tablespoons of water, then add fats later.
If you add the fat first, the mushrooms are going to release so much liquid that you just have to boil that off anyway.
I sweat the mushrooms in the microwave before I sauté. They release a ton of water, which I use on another dish’s preparation (rice, pasta, kale, etc).
Did the information upthread ruin that method for you? Hopefully that water isn’t all pesticidey and poopy… (I have no insight on that)
Obligatory Adam Ragusea video for this topic
Thank you. I had not seen that before. Love his stuff, and it makes so much sense.
Running mushrooms under water makes them soggy, that’s just reality. You can get them just as clean wiping them with a slightly damp paper towel or cloth without that happening.
From Serious Eats:
First off, it’s true: mushrooms do absorb water when you wash them, but it’s only about 2% of their total weight, or, translated to volume, that’s about 1 1/2 teaspoons of water per pound, which in turn translates to an extra 15 to 30 seconds of cooking time.
“Soggy” is an exaggeration.
It’s not about the absorption. They get soggy/slimy if you don’t immediately cook them
I think you’re about to cook them.
Been washing all kinds of mushrooms for years and I‘ve had the opposite experience. They’re only soggy if they’ve been cooking in oil, soaked it up, then dumped all their water. They don’t get brown as they soak up the oil, and then they dump it all out with the water, meaning you’re just steaming them until you evaporate off all the water.
Best is to wash the mushrooms, slice, cook in a little bit of water until they dump out their water, cook until the water has evaporated, then add oil and brown (or even crisp if you desire).
Perfect mushrooms every time (I’ve dated a lot of vegans so I’ve eaten mushrooms every few days for over a decade).
This assumes you’re going to fry them. If you want raw mushrooms in a salad, it’s going to be a lot more noticeable.
Wash them whole and dry them right after. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t soak up water like sponges with a quick wash. You can easily prove this by just weighing them before and after washing/drying. The weight change is minuscule.
Total water absorption doesn’t matter that much because the significant thing is surface texture. If you’re going to dry them anyway you might as well instead wash them without directly pouring water on them.
A friend of mine solves this by meticulously peeling the caps and discarding the stems. It seems like a lot of work to me. I use a mushroom brush to get the dirt and substrate/manure off and call it good.
It doesn’t matter if they actually absorb water or not. Just try the mushrooms side by side, washed and unwashed. Decide based on what you prefer.
Raw mushrooms are borderline wasteful to eat. We can’t digest the chitin and cell walls so most of the nutritional value passes straight through.
I’ve never had a problem with this, raw or cooked. The insides of my washed mushrooms are always dry.
Just a note that raw mushrooms make people sick all the time and are a very common cause of food poisoning - especially wild mushrooms. You can get away with it with super common crimini mushrooms but some people are allergic even to that.
It’s okay to be direct a little bit.
“You don’t wash the mushrooms? It says on the package, man, they might have poop or pesticide or whatever else.”
“Okay, well if I’m gonna be eating them can I wash them? I’ll make 'em up, man, I’m not telling you what to do. But I don’t wanna eat anything that’s on them that might be bad for me. I would prefer not to at least.”
I don’t know, you can adapt the language, or stay away from the whole conversation if it really feels wrong. But usually if there’s an issue it’s better to say what the issue is even if it’s a little uncomfortable. You’re not making a problem or starting a confrontation, it’s just saying what’s on your mind and sharing. Otherwise you don’t really have friends and allies, just sort of alien people you’re going through the motions with while you each harbor your own little secret thoughts all through the evening.
“You don’t wash the mushrooms? It says on the package, man, they might have poop or pesticide or whatever else.”
When we make something about the other person, telling them that they are wrong and, in this case, even disgusting, they are going to get offended and be less amendable to seeing your side and helping you out. They may get shamed into doing it, but I think this damages the relationship.
Just make it about yourself
“Hey, Im a bit squeamish about unwashed veggies. Do you mind if I rinse them for you?”
Gets the same point across, but makes it about yourself rather than the other person, so they have no reason to be defensive. They will also be more likely to open up to changing.
“Hey, wash those veggies first”
Just remember to set the water to cold.
Don’t even ask, just start washing them yourself. Lol
“Did you know that garden gnomes have passionate all-night orgies?”
They have a lemon party under the lemon tree.
What’s a lemon party? Should I Google it with safe search off?
No, Google is all AI disinformation now, better just go directly to the website itself.
lol the .org is still up
Holy shit. Haha that’s a blast from the past.
‘connection refused’
But… I wanted to party… With some lemons…
Well you’re in luck. https://youtu.be/xPW-vkohqPE?si=MWm_f9vxiCirEKsW
Its from “30 Rock”. Tina Feye’s character Liz Lemon had her parent’s visiting. Upon arriving, her father Richard exclaimed “Its not a Lemon party without old Dick!”.
Ahaha
Hey should NSFW that link just in case
Probably the only way is to help prepare with them or talk to them about it.
I gave a friend of mine a hard time for not rinsing off the soap before putting them out to dry.
Edit: Their dishes, not their food.
They wash their vegetables with soap? Like… special veg soap or just like Dawn or something?
Oh my, I missed a word there. I meant to say they were doing that with their dishes. haha
Oh good. That makes more sense.
Just to be clear for people trying to learn:
Vegetable rinse/soap products aren’t particularly necessary. Vegetables won’t have the oily coating skin does/can.
You do, however, need to scrub it. It’s honestly a bit of a Catch-22 because if you don’t also clean the vegetable brush every time, guess what’s now a bacterial buffet?
“hey, sorry to seem rude, but I am a little neurotic about this, I recently got sick from eating some unwashed vegetables so now I’m trying to be hyper vigilant, can I wash these really quickly?”
This is a tricky one. I think I’d just offer to help them prepare and then specifically ask to be put on vegetable duty. One of my aunts is like this, doesn’t wash veggies, doesn’t rinse the soap off her dishes once she’s scrubbed them (!), so whenever I’m at her house I just offer to help.
doesn’t rinse the soap off her dishes once she’s scrubbed them
Flabbergasted when I learned from an American friend that their British friend did this.
No she’s not. The water is very unclean, super soapy, and she does it “to save water”. There is often soap residue on the glasses and probably the dishes too, you can just see it easier on the glass. She wonders why she’s had stomach issues most of her adult life.
This is also the woman who once let a turkey thaw in her fridge, which then leaked raw turkey juice (bloody water) onto a half slice of watermelon that was on the shelf below it. She then ate the watermelon after washing it off in the sink “because it was wrapped in plastic and was still ok.” It was not ok, she got food poisoning.
I think she’s just unhygienic and has an “I’m always right” Boomer mentality.
Throw up on their vegetables. That wont come as rude, and certainly you wont have the problem of eating with them again in the future
“I’ve had sand on my vegetables before. Can I wash them?”
I’ve found sand in salad multiple times. Not washing greens are weird.
There are
sidesdudes so manly that when they go to the bathroom they thoroughly wash their hands before doing their business, but not afterwards.Now you know why the cold and the flu and now COVID will never go away.
thoroughly wash their hands before doing their business
That would be a first for me to see. Well maybe I’ve seen it at a place that serves hot wings…
I work with my hands so if my hands are covered in grease or dirt or whatever I wash my hands before taking a piss. I do wash my hands after as well.
Oops, you didn’t even finish reading my first comment and just started replying. So your answer actually doesn’t apply.
You full well know we’re talking about the average guy in just your everyday average bathroom usage.
We’re not talking about edge cases.
There are some edge cases where you would never wash your hands - because you don’t have any, or wearing a pee bag (whatever they are called)…
There are some edge cases where you should just pee in your clothes - when you’re floating in the middle of the ocean all alone…
There are some edge cases where you always make someone else handle your business - when you’re in a coma…
There are some edge cases where you should hold your pee - someone has an example…
What other edge cases do you want to think up to prove absolutely nothing?
If you’re just peeing that makes a lot of sense.
You don’t wash your hands after peeing?
Yes I do. But it’s more important to wash them before and if I could only do one, I’d take before.
Let’s never eat anywhere near each other.
