Soapy tasting food?

[WHGEORGE]

Have been cooking on electric stove with non-stick pans. (Pans are about 1 year old). I recently remodeled my kitchen and installed a Wolf Gas Cooktop and now using the same pans the food has a soapy taste??? HELP!!! Does anyone know the cause of this and a solution short of buying new pots and pans? We have tried thoroughly rinsing with hot fresh water, no difference.

[Jock]

It's not likely to be the pans. After all, a pan is a pan is a pan. Most of us cook with gas and many use non stick pans with no effect so it's not likely to be the fuel.

My guess would be the newness of the range and residual oils from the manufacturing process burning off. If it doesn't go away soon, I would report back to the dealer for advice.

Jock

[Mezzaluna]

Are you sure it's the pans? Could it be off-gassing from the vent filter? (Just guessing.) When I was a youngster (too many years ago) the chicken my mom bought tasted soapy to me. No one else in the family noticed it, but I did. I can still taste it: kind of plasticky, soapy, bitter. Didn't matter what method she used to cook it, but it was usually oven fried or broiled. Even a soy and lemon marinade with garlic wouldn't hide the taste. Mom bought chicken from a few different places, but for a period of a few months, I couldn't eat it or even smell it. Then, the taste and smell went away. We never figured it out. Let me know if you do!

[deltadoc]

My sister had that problem of soapy tasting food for a few years when we were young. It was because mom washed her mouth out with soap for backtalking. It did eventually go away as she grew older.

doc

[Mezzaluna]

Ha! That wasn't the case. I think it was my brothers' dishwashing skills.

[Suzanne]

I find the same problem sometimes, and I've been using the same gas stove for about 10 years. So I agree that it's probably not the new stove.

Perhaps it's the kind of soap you're using; have you tried changing brands? There are some that I absolutely cannot use because no matter how thoroughly I rinse, the smell lingers (Palmolive is one of the worst!!) This is true for both the liquid stuff for hand washing and the dishwasher versions.

Or: Could it be that the nonstick lining of the pans has scratches or tears that allow the soap from washing to collect between the lining and the pan itself? Even the best nonstick surfaces get nicks, and if the pans are well-used it is very likely. If the soap residue gets trapped, that could account for the problem. Maybe you need to soak the pans in fresh water after you wash them, to allow the residue to escape the way it got in.

[deltadoc]

A thought just occurred to me. When washing your pots/pans, are you using soft or filtered water? I had to take out our water filter that we installed when we remodeled our kitchen, because we just couldn't rinse the soap off our hands when washing them in the kitchen sink. It was removing many of the "hard elements" in the water. Same thing for the Culligan water softener for the bathroom remodel, had to remove that too, as we couldn't rinse off the soap after bathing.

Hard water removes the soap so much more thoroughly.

Just wondering if that could be the mysterious cause?

doc

[justfryit]

Some recent studies have discovered that heating non-stick pans at too high a temperature gives off some sort of gas from the teflon. Maybe that is the cause.

Have you tried cooking the same food in a stainless pan and compared the two?

[kuan]

Go to the pet store and buy a parakeet. Hang it up in the kitchen close enough to the stove but not too close that it's too hot.

If the bird keels over and dies, then your pans are emitting noxious fumes. Get rid of them. If the bird remains healthy, you have a friend for life.

OK, I don't want you to go kill any birds. But check this out:

http://www.theaviary.com/teflon.shtml

[katbalou]

kuan,
thanks for the laugh, i really needed that.
kat