Wednesday November 30, 2005
Strange thing that just bugs me: The word “preheat”. I have been going through recipe books and online recipe sites just sort of looking around for something to get out of the rut a bit. The word ‘preheat’ is in almost every recipe. (I am not a raw foodist, obviously. lol)
Let’s dissect the word a bit: “Pre” means before. Wouldn’t ‘preheat’ mean that is had no heat…before you add heat? Wouldn’t my oven be in a constant state of ‘preheating’ unless I was actually ‘heating’ it? Why the prefix? I know what it means, I am just saying that it is a silly, meaningless embellishment to the word ‘heat’. Why can’t it just say “Heat the oven to 350 degrees F”. Why do we have to plug those three letters at the beginning?
Ok…back to life…I am headed to the kitchen to get the baked potatoes out of the oven. Sadly, no matter how many recipes I have looked at, I still just put some potatoes in for supper. lol.
George Carlin had a joke about this very thing in one of his standup routines. He’s a word-nerd.
I bet that is where it came from. I enjoy George Carlin…of course, blue language doesn’t phase me and I don’t offend easily.
I fall back on potatoes a lot too and rice has so much potential that is yet unexplored…