True or false? A raw potato added to an overly salty soup or stew will soak up the extra salt and save the meal.

Answer: False. “This is an attractive idea, but it doesn’t work,” says professor of chemistry Robert Wolke. “Potatoes are not particularly absorbent,” says Wolke, who conducted his own soup-and-potato experiment for his book. “There is no reason they would attract salt.” If you remove the potato from the soup, the potato will taste salty, but so would a sponge — it has simply soaked up some of the salty liquid. Still, there is hope for salty stews: Adding a bit of vinegar or sugar can “cancel out” the saltiness by giving your taste buds competing flavors.