Has commercial cooking oil changed?

[LAS14]

A while ago I noticed an overtone of taste in an eggplant parmagiana sandwich and then, a few days later, the same or similar taste overtone with a BLT. The taste wasn't unpleasant, so I don't think it was rancid oil. I remember once eating some MacDonald's fries that I was sure were cooked in rancid oil. But the taste wasn't familiar and it was wrong for the food. I'm wondering if some commercial cooking oil is being used that isn't neutral like canola.

Have any of you had this experience? Any idea about what's going on?

[Tetrachloride]

1. put some in refrigerator in tall narrow clear glass

take notes : smell, appearance , viscosity

before and after refrigeratiion


try other oils

[Warpy]

2. I think a lot of places use oil conditioners once too many times

but commercially prepared fried foods always taste "off" to me, especially at the end of a meal when the food has cooled.

Even though canola oil is advertised as having the acid removed, a lot of people still can't tolerate it and that's why restaurants generally don't use it. Mixed, generic vegetable oil is cheaper, anyway. It also has little flavor, which is why I mentioned oil conditioners.

Oil on the edge of rancidity tastes hot, not bad. Fully rancid oil stinks.

[Phoenix61]

3. They are using old oil. It's not rancid but it's been used to

cook too much food.

[LAS14]

5. This reminds me of a clam shack north of Boston.

It is arguably the best known and most highly praised place to get fried clams. Every afternoon, for half an hour (I think 2 to 2:30, but not sure), they stop serving fried food so they can change the oil.

[Phoenix61]

6. Nothing sadder than throwing some beautiful shrimp or scallops into old, burnt oil. nt

[Retrograde]

7. There's an old roadhouse popular with bikers

about 10 miles from here. We used to joke that one should only order their fries early in the year - after the annual oil change! Not that anyone went there for the food anyway - it was a place to sit and drink a beer after biking in the hills.

[kgray96057]

4. Fried Hasn't Tasted Right For Years

When I started cooking, we got these huge blocks of beef tallow. Throw then in the fryers, melt them and then go to full heat. IU believe that the tallow was mixed with a little shortening, but not by much. Enough to extend the heat range.

Once the industry moved to shortening- and pure vegetable oils- the fried food always tasted off, me.

But for those who've never tasted food cooked in that... I think the biggest problem now is that oil is expensive enough to be recycled a few too many times. Drain the dryer, Strain the burned bits out of the oil, throw it back in. You can filter the hell out of it, make it look practically new. Still adds an off taste.

[Retrograde]

8. You'd love the fries in Belgium and the Netherlands

twice-fried in beef tallow: once at the beginning of the day, and then again when a customer orders them. I don't know how often the tallow is reused, but those countries take their fries very seriously.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I'm trying to figure out what part of an eggplant parmagiana sandwich,

or a BLT that you are frying with oil.

Some years ago McDonald's changed their oil for their fries, and I simply stopped going there because the fries no longer tasted good. I believe they originally used a beef tallow, but apparently some people didn't like the beef part, and so McDonald's made the change. Honestly, those people should have started their own fast food chain, rather than ruining it for the rest of us.

I have been known to make my very own fries using real potatoes and Crisco. Haven't done that in several years now, but oh, my, they are good.