The Myth About Marinades

"Well, if you leave the meat in a marinade for a long time, like what we did in our experiment, then you do have an effect," This says. "The meat is more tender. But it is not the marinade that makes it tender: It is time. If you use an acidic marinade, it will protect the surface from spoilage while the rest of the meat matures. And you know when meat matures, it becomes tender."

So what about meat tenderizers? The only effective ones are brutal devices: One is a meat mallet, like a hammer but with an enlarged flat end full of sharp spikes that are used to damage the muscle fibers. The other is based on protease enzymes, such as papain, found in papaya; actinidin, from kiwi; ficin, from figs; and bromelain, from pineapple. The enzymes do a fine job. The problem is that their calling is not so much tenderizing as it is digesting proteins. When you use them on your steak, you're letting the enzymes eat your meat for you. The concept is unappetizing, and so is the result: The enzymes start at the surface, leaving it mushy, while the interior remains as tough as ever. (Such enzymes can be useful after a meal: If you eat a piece of pineapple, you get a kick of sugar and a digestive aid.)

But tenderization is not as important as it once was. In earlier times, when hygiene and slaughtering practices were more primitive and refrigeration was not readily available, most meat that was safe to eat was also quite tough. Safe ways to reduce toughness were much in demand. Today, most of us rely on buying a steak that is already tender rather than maturing it ourselves.

If marinades are so inefficient, why bother?

I can think of several reasons. Some have very little to do with the science of a marinade and quite a lot to do with the way my mind works and the pragmatics of outdoor cooking. I like to flavor my steak with about a dozen ingredients, depending on what's at hand, and there is no way I am going to carry such a substantial part of my pantry into the garden. I mix it all in a marinade that I can carry in a food-safe plastic bag. I also think that without marinades, the grilling season would lack an important ingredient, like the taste of fire and ice-cold beer.

And even for the scientifically minded, there is a rabbit in the hat and an ace up the sleeve. Despite all the things marinating does not do, it does in fact make my steak more flavorful and juicy.

The marinade may not penetrate the meat, but the pleasantly flavored liquid covers a steak better than any spice mixture. In just a few seconds it coats the surface of the steak and every nook and crevice. In a well-marbled rib-eye there will be hundreds of small slits for the marinade to find its way through. To This, what he calls the "capillarity assumption" is powerful: With it, he says, you get just as much effect from marinating for four seconds as for 24 hours.

Even if the marinade does not go farther into the meat, it will cover an area much larger than the visible surface. When we eat, our perception of flavor is largely formed by the surface, anyway; that is why a steak tastes grilled or fried even though only the outer part of the meat has been in direct contact with the grill or skillet.

As for the juiciness, a marinade helps make up for the fact that grilling is a vicious way to cook meat. Instead of using the abilities that technology offers us to adjust and moderate heat, we return to our Neanderthal origins and cook our steaks over temperatures that can easily incinerate them. I like the taste of grilled, even slightly burned, meat, but I do not want my steak to be overcooked, which is a very real possibility. A few times during the grilling, I cool the meat by returning it to the marinade. It is much like basting the meat or setting it aside to rest, but submerging it in the relatively cold marinade is more efficient. It also allows the marinade to find new slits and openings in which to deposit its delicious flavor.

One more way to make marinade work for you, one in which it actually will penetrate the meat, is by marinating after cooking. That does not apply to steak cooked medium or medium-rare, but to long-simmered stews or pot dishes. Have you noticed that those dishes tend to taste better the next day? There are several reasons, but one is that when the cooked meat, whose fibers have been separated, cools off, it will soak up the moisture surrounding it -- like a sponge, or like a marinade that really did what it promised.

Andreas Viestad, author of "Where Flavor Was Born" and co-host of the upcoming public television series "Perfect Day," can be reached at andreas@andreasviestad.com or food@washpost.com. His Gastronomer column appears monthly.