My Grandmother Always Salted the Water Before Boiling Eggs...Turns Out There Was a Reason

Growing up, there were certain kitchen rules that nobody questioned. One of them was adding a pinch of salt to the pot whenever eggs were boiled. My grandmother did it every single time, and if you asked why, the answer was usually something along the lines of, "That's just how it's done." Years later, I started wondering whether that habit actually mattered. As it turns out, it does but probably not for the reason most people think. Salt doesn't magically make eggs cook faster, and it won't guarantee perfect eggs every time. But if an egg develops a small crack while boiling, the salt can help the leaking egg white firm up more quickly, which may keep the mess from getting worse. That discovery reminded me of something I've noticed about cooking in general. A lot of family kitchen traditions survive because they work, even if the explanation behind them gets lost over time. Someone learns a technique, passes it down, and eventually nobody remembers exactly why they started doing it. Some of those traditions turn out to be myths. Others turn out to have a surprising amount of truth behind them. Honestly, those little discoveries are some of my favorite parts of cooking. You start with a family habit and end up learning something new about how food actually works. Now I'm curious. What's a cooking rule you learned from a parent or grandparent that you later discovered had a completely different explanation than the one you were originally told?