At preserving food quality? I have an acquaintance (seriously!), who always pokes holes in (hot) take-out food that has been packaged in styrofoam containers because letting out the venting steam prevents the food from getting soggy.
Anyone know factually if this happens? f not, anyone wanna do a double blind experiment?
The dim sum place I love best sells an amazing deep fried squid. Their take out foam container has the corners cut off and it does make a difference as the squid come right out of the fryer. I’d say this only goes for deep fried crispy food. You will lose some temperature but Id rather have slightly less cool but still crispy fried items.
I don’t remember encountering this problem personally, but it makes some sense. That said, I would expect a styrofoam container and a paper wrapper to hold in the steam pretty much the same.
While not exactly the same situation, I have some microwavable Philly steak sandwiches that are wrapped in paper, and I tear a small hole in the packaging when it is cooking. If I let it cool without unwrapping, the bread gets pretty soggy.
I imagine the effectiveness has more to do with how hot the item is when it’s in the container, because I couldn’t see anything getting very soggy if there isn’t a lot of steam being generated in the container.
Recently I have been seeing containers with four half moon shaped cuts in the top that would allow you use your finger to punch in the shapes and create air holes. I’m guessing you leave them closed for cold food and open them for hot food.
The food won’t get any soggier overall than it already was-- Where do you think the steam comes from in the first place? But the distribution of moisture in the food might change. This leaves you with a choice: Let the moist things dry out and the dry things get moist, or let the moist things dry out and keep the dry things dry. I’m not sure either is really superior.
Well, some of it comes from moisture in the air, which is condensed into water by the heat of the food. So that is added water.
But I don’t know if this is enough to change the food significantly.