[Sca-cooks] salt cod

[Ted Eisenstein]

> OK, when I freeze things in my refrigerator freezer they sometimes get
>soggy. Of course, it is not (by any stretch of the imagination) frost free,
>and I think that makes a difference. I'm willing to believe a chest freezer
>is different, but I've never had one.

That sogginess may be from moisture internal to whatever's being frozen,
that can't get out upon defrosting. Water does expand a bit when cold, and
a lot of moist stuff will suffer a bit of cell damage: water expands, cells expand,
cells explode, water gets out, you get moisture. And some warm air, and
hence some moisture, will get in every time you open the freezer, which is
why you often get frost inside: it's not the moisture already inside the freezer, it's
what gets in from outside.

Cold air itself is less humid than warm air; that's why you tend to get
precipitation when warm fronts interact with cold fronts. And why house air
is always drier in the winter than in the summer: warm summer air has
high humidity and when it gets inside cool houses, the relative humidity
jumps a bit. In winter, very, very cold (and therefore drier than in summer)
air gets inside, warms up, and the relative humidity drops. And this also
explains why pilots prefer taking off on cold days over hot days: the colder
the air, the less water in the air, which means, errr, the more air in the
air - and more air and less water makes for better combustion and more
power in the engines.

(Confused? Think: warm air molecules are moving very fast. Cold air
molecules very slowly. Imagine a beach with people: the ones who are active
can keep a lot of beach balls in the air and the lazy ones can't. . . )

Alban