Testing The Kitchen Hack: Wooden Spoon vs Boiling Pot

I was scrolling though Facebook the other day and came across a post about Clever Food Hacks.  I'm sure you've all seen this by now, but if not, check it out here, there some good stuff there. 

I've known about #23 for a while, and have used it successfully in my kitchen many times - especially when you have kids that often call you away while cooking.  Check it out in action

I was curious why it works though,and if it would work for every liquid.  So I let my fingers do the walking.

The folks over at Gizmodo revealed the reason:

"It's the foam layer on top that causes the problems. What has happened is the starch makes the bubbles that were already there more stretchy and pliable, so it takes longer for them to burst. A lot of bubbles on the surface doesn't allow for proper ventilation of steam, meaning the pot of boiling water becomes superheated if the pot isn't stirred or the frothy layer skimmed off the top in time. The trapped steam causes the frothy bubbles to expand and pop up, resulting in boiling-hot pasta water all over your stove if you're not careful."

So there you have it, simple solution to keep all that starchy pasta water out of your burners.  This also works great in the microwave too!

What kitchen hacks have you used that have either worked will for you, or didn't work as you'd expected?