Hi Bob,

I had never heard of it either -- but a quick Google search found a
huge number of mentions of cooking octopus with wine corks. None with
much history, and only one with a supposed reason (a lot of
hypothesizing about the cork's tannins -- that didn't make much sense
to me, as tannins tend to denature, toughen, protein).

I asked some experts on Italian food (Clifford Wright and Nancy Harmon
Jenkins) -- they both knew about the practice, had looked into it years
ago, but had been able to reach no conclusions.

I asked Harold McGee -- the person most likely to have looked at the
thing from a scientific POV. He wrote back:

"I have done some experiments and thought about it. Cork is pretty
inert
stuff--dead plant tissue coated in water-repelling suberin, which would
limit any extraction of compounds from the tissue into the cooking
water.
Also, it floats, so the surface actually in contact with the liquid is
maybe
a few square millimeters. And in the couple of times I've tried it side
by
side with no corks, I haven't seen a difference."

And yes, I had to look up "suberin."

One definition: "Suberin is a waxy substance secreted by cork cells
that seals the stem against water loss, insect invasion, and infection
by bacteria and fungal spores."

So, I'm still wondering...

Gary


Bob (this one) wrote:
> Gary wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I've been away from the group for a LONG time -- but as I have a
> > question, I'm back, proverbial hat in proverbial hand.
> >
> > A student was asking about the practice of placing a wine cork in with
> > octopus -- supposedly to tenderize it. After some testing, it was found
> > to have no effect. The question, then, is when did this practice begin
> > and where (it seems to be Mediterranean, and probably Italian, in
> > origin -- but I'm open to any better answers)?
>
> Hey, good to see you around again.
>
> This Italian-American with Italian immigrant grandparents (two from
> north, two from south) who ate a lot of octopus has never seen nor heard
> of this practice.
>
> Pastorio