ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 25, 1996 TAG: 9601250002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: WHY THINGS ARE
SOURCE: JOEL ACHENBACH
We are looking at all the letters we've received from distressed readers since we announced the demise of the Why column (though you notice we are dragging it out, like a death scene in a bad play. There's still a couple of weeks left. Any day we expect to get some letters saying, ``So die already.'')
Many people sent desperate last-minute questions, and today we will provide a few desperate last-minute answers.
Andrew G. of Miami Beach, Fla., writes, ``Why do some men, as they approach a urinal in a public restroom, decide to spit into it first?''
Dear Andrew: With the disappearance of spittoons, men are constantly in search of receptacles for their saliva projectiles. Baseball dugouts seem to be the main substitute. We can't explain the urinal phenomenon, and frankly aren't sure that, this close to the end, we even want to explore it further.
What we can report is that, according to Mark Richardson, an otolaryngologist at Johns Hopkins Medical School, men and women produce the same amount of saliva. Spitting is thus purely behavioral. Perhaps spitting is an extension of the male instinct to cast broadly upon the planet his bodily fluids.
Richardson gave us the answer to another question we have been pondering: Why don't kids get their tonsils out the way they used to?
Tonsils and adenoids are still removed, but not like they were in the old days, when it was a rite of passage for children, like learning to ride a bike. It's no longer even among the top 10 most common surgeries. The main reason is that doctors are better able now to know when an infection of the tonsils or adenoids will become a chronic problem requiring surgery, and when it can be treated with less drastic means, such as antibiotics.
In case you were wondering, the tonsils and adenoids are lymph glands, part of the body's immunological system. The tonsils are on either side of the back of the throat, while the adenoids are up higher, behind the nose, in the nasopharynx. ``Since they are at the entrance to your digestive system, they come into contact with a lot of bacteria that can cause them to become enlarged and chronically infected,'' Richardson says.
Fact: George Washington died of a tonsil abscess. This type of infection goes by the common name of ``quinsy.'' Great name. It'd be fun to brag, to say, ``I have a touch of quinsy.''
Now then: Recently columnist Courtland Milloy of The Washington Post asked us, ``Why do leftovers taste so good?''
Dear Courtland: We called up Julia Child, the famous chef with the high-pitched voice, because we knew that she was a big advocate of sticking a stew overnight in the refrigerator before serving it.
She told us, ``With meat, the cooking has broken down the structure, so just sitting in the liquid, the liquid can penetrate.'' Child doesn't recommend even using the term ``leftovers.'' She says it's unattractive. ``Just say `I have some cold turkey,' or `I have some cold roast beef.'''
In a way, putting something in the fridge is an extension of cooking - you are making changes in the food at the cellular level. Nancy Cohen, a professor of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, says that cooking breaks down cell walls of vegetables, and ``denatures'' the protein of meat. Everything mixes together. When food is ``leftover'' there is more time for the flavors to mingle.
Cohen warned us that many people leave stuff in the fridge too long. Bacteria are constantly growing in there, however slowly; some are dangerous, some just gross. How long can you keep stuff? Here's what she says:
Meat: 3 or 4 days. Gravy: 1 or 2 days. Eggs: 3 to 5 weeks. Fresh poultry: 1 to 2 days. Mayonnaise: 2 months. (It has an acid base. The notion that mayonnaise is particularly prone to spoilage is wrong.)
Cohen says, ``The biggest thing that will help is dating. Most people do not label and date their foods.''
In the Why bunker we know we are in trouble when we find a container in the back of the fridge with a label written in Middle English.
Next: Jim S. of Harrisonburg, Va., asks, ``How did rubber-hose questioning under bright lights become known as the third degree? What are the first and second degree? And is the fourth degree worse than the third degree?''
Dear Jim: You don't want to know what the fourth degree is. It's so bad, just reading about it can raise welts and blisters.
Our dictionary indicates the term might be inspired by the examination given freemasons when they want to qualify as a ``third degree'' or ``master'' mason. But we can't confirm that.
We did contact the Shriners, who are an exalted form of the masons, and we spoke to a man named Ralph Semb, who identified himself as the Imperial High Priest and Prophet of the Shrine of North America. He said that although there is some ritual to becoming a third-degree mason, it doesn't involve rubber-hose torture.
And lastly: Doris B. of Oceanside, Calif., writes: ``Don't end your Why column until you tell us, `Why don't we eat turkey eggs?'''
Dear Doris: We answered that one sometime in the 1980s, noting that turkey eggs, in addition to costing about 75 cents each, contain less water than chicken eggs, and thus, when cooked, become rubbery and unpalatable. So now that we've answered it twice, we can definitely kill the column. - Washington Post Writers Group
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