I just cut into a piece of ginger and it has a greenish/blueish tint to it.Has it gone bad?

What did you cut it with?

It's likely a chemical reaction such as what happens with garlic. See here:

As long as the ginger's firm and not spongy, it should still be fine.

Just a plain old knife and peeler

Well I haven't even started cooking it yet

Hmm

Was the knife sterile? Was it maybe touching garlic or onion before you used it on the ginger?

What I mean to say is, the whole thing was blue as I was cutting it

I don't think it turned green/blue

I don't think you'd really know; you can't see the inside until you've already run through it with a knife, right?

If there's any garlic or onion or other allium involved then it's probably responsible. Try cutting another piece with a different, clean knife, see if that piece is also green/blue. If it is... well then you might have a problem (but still probably not, if the ginger is firm and smells fresh).

Yeah, the other piece I cut was a normal sandy/orange color

but it IS firm and smells like ginger

It's also possible that you actually got blue ginger. Where'd you get it from?

It came in a package with the non-blue ginger :-D

A big chain supermarket

I mean, it was wrapped with the other piece of ginger

Haha. Well your ginger may actually be galangal, which looks exactly like normal ginger but is blueish deep inside.

Hmm

If it's not fuzzy, like mold, if the blue doesn't actually scrape right off, and if it doesn't smell or feel off, then it should be fine. I can't promise you anything but blue ginger is not uncommon.

:-D okay

That sounds like solid advice from someone with 10k rep on cooking.stackexchange.com

We'll use it in our meal then :-D

Well, that 10k is not all from food safety questions, but I have used blue ginger before and not gotten sick.

Well, we're just going to make some ginger tea with it ... the other ginger's already cut up and in the food. If it tastes bad, we'll stop drinking ;-)

Hahaha, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Then again, you're talking to somebody who once picked up a large visibly dirty chicken bone complete with cat hair up from off the floor, rinsed it off and tossed it back into the stock pot; most people are far more paranoid than they need to be about food. :P

LOL -- well if you're going to cook the dirt off :-P

Okay, dinner time! Thanks for the advice!

I'm interested to hear how the next round of experiments turn out @aaronut.

What did you want to know about the vita-mix?

I wanted to know which one you have. Did you get the "TNC" or one of the food service models?

I got the CIA version

It's this one: google.com/products/…

rad mixer.

Looks the same as the TNC version from pictures. Looks like vita-mix does lots of re-branding and very schlocky infomercials. But the blender is the real deal. But a pair of ear plugs too though! You can't surprise anyone with smoothie's in bed with this thing.

Have you owned other blenders? How would you compare it? Does it blend a lot of things that others don't, or blend them smoother?

What I'm really trying to understand is if it's actually capable of liquefying things that my current blender just spins around or worse, splatters onto the sides where they get stuck. I think some of the iSi stuff I'm playing around with expects better blending than I'm actually able to do.

It is a definite grade above any other ~$100 blender I've ever had. It makes smooth peanut butter out of nothing but peanuts. Silky soups, much better than before. The ice drinks (smoothie, coffee, margarita) are bar / starbucks quality.

Ahh, interesting, so if you put say, raspberries in there, you wouldn't have seeds?

I'm very happy with it. We had a blender that we never used. We use the vitamix regularly.

depends how long you ran it.

at one point, the seeds would be whole, at the next, they'd be crushed.

Well, I know with mine (which isn't a crap blender by any measure), I end up having to strain or eat the seeds no matter how long I run the damn thing on Ice Crush setting.

I've only done raspberries once, and I ended up with crushed seeds.

But I think if I'd have run it longer, they'd have gone.

The biggest problem I had when I made the Goat Cheese Espuma for the iSi was that the mixture would blend for about one second, and then the motor would just be running dry with bits of it stuck to the walls or just far enough away from the blade such that I'd have to open it up and keep scraping it back to the center.

It sounds like you're saying the Vitamix isn't that sensitive to positioning?

If you can make butter out of whole peanuts then it'd have to be good at distributing all of the food, right?

definitely not. It's super powerful. Plus the tamper actually makes a huge difference for thick blending (like peanut butter)

Tamper?

THere's a tamper that goes in the top, and stops just short of the blades (2mm?)

So you can use it to push stuff around while blending.

You mean like you normally see in a food processor?

I don't think so.

I'm having trouble visualizing it... I don't think I've ever seen what you're referring to, at least in a blender.

It goes all the way in to the blender so that it's almost touching the blades.

Does it cover the entire diameter? Basically like a lowerable ceiling?

and it goes down almost to the blades.

dinner's hit a critical point. I'll jump back on tomorrow and see if I can find you.

That looks like just a stick...

Alright, well enjoy.

I believe they call it a tamper. It makes a big difference with thick stuff though. g'night.

So... what does human meat taste like?

I knew it! 8 minutes and no answer!

This is all @rchern's fault.

...oy.

It varies from person to person.

The ethical way to test it is of course with your own limbs. My pinky wasn't particularly tasty, so I decided the reward really wasn't worth the effort.