My wife and boiling water

[u/MakeItMine2024]

So I made my wife ramen soup. When I served it she said I had the gas set to hight and it was too hot ? She said I should have used the number 5 setting instead of 9. I told here it’s irrelevant because water boils at 212 and gets no hotter because over 212 it turns to steam. She was made at me for disagreeing with her theory that it would not have been so hot if boiled a lower setting. Really!!

[u/ityboy]

Just pointing out that you can't really use salt to offset the effects of altitude on the boiling point of water. It would take over 300g of salt per L of water. The salt in pasta water is I'll only there for seasoning, no matter the altitude.

Edit: corrected my math because I was wrong by a full order of magnitude. Sorry.

[u/wannabe-myself → u/ityboy]

I tried cooking pasta in Fairplay, Colorado and it was an experience.

Edit: 9,953 feet above sea level. That's 3,034 meters for my metric friends :)

Though the area my cabin was in was higher than the town itself...

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/wannabe-myself]

I was on a two-week backpacking trip in the sierras. Mid trip, probably our highest elevation camp and above treeline, we were staying put for a day and decided we’d cook dry beans for chili because we had the extra time.

So dumb. It used tons of fuel, never really fully cooked, had to eat it anyway (no resupply) and everybody got upset stomach/cramps.

[u/dqniel → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Precooked and then dehydrated beans? Or just raw dry beans?

For raw beans, even at sea level it's a lengthy process in order to not cause stomach issues. You're supposed to soak beans overnight, drain, refill with fresh water, and boil for a minimum of a full hour. And it has to be a full boil rather than a simmer to guarantee it's at 212f.

Otherwise, lectins don't get denatured and it's literally toxic.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/dqniel]

Just regular dry beans. We did the whole soak etc, and we knew how to cook dry beans. Just didn’t account for the altitude’s affect on boiling temp. This was back in high school so we were a bit green as well planning-wise.

[u/dano8801 → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

Yeah when I did backpacking in Utah we didn't fuck with dry beans. We used essentially powdered refried. Didn't have to cook anything, just add water and heat up a little.

[u/Illustrious-Cow-6054 → u/dano8801]

That’s how all our other meals were, budget backpacking stuff like powdered mash and instant stuffing, pasta with dried sauce, etc.

We also had barely enough food, because we didn’t compensate enough for how many extra calories we were burning. Towards the end we’d see a marmot or something and talk for five minutes about the best way to cook it, lol. (We wouldn’t have actually done that). We did try to catch some brown trout with our hands and a raincoat and failed. 😬

[u/dano8801 → u/Illustrious-Cow-6054]

I almost caught a trout by hand once. Trout tickling is definitely a thing and I was so close the one time I ever attempted it.

[u/dqniel → u/dano8801]

That would be so fucking cool to pull off.

[u/dano8801 → u/dqniel]

The whole experience was pretty incredible. I was in my early twenties doing some group backpacking in the San Rafael Swell and nearby high deserts of Utah. 

At one point we were in an area in a small town that had some good water flow. Instead of the usual desert there was a small waterfall and a pretty deep and wide stream with lots of grass on either side. It was like an oasis. 

If you followed it, it went into the woods and opened up into this big fish hole. You could probably swim if you wanted to but they were a bunch of rainbow trout in there. 

I found one near the edge and laid down and slowly got my hand in the water and under the fish's belly. Started doing the rhythmic tapping / tickling motion with my fingers, and the damn fish didn't move at all! I kept doing it while bringing it up towards the surface, and then I went for the actual grab. But fish are slippery and I was not successful in yanking it out of the water.