food handling safety. lost art?
 

holy KRAP!! we are having an office turkey day party. being a public office, we all chip in..cash or bring a dish.

my annual responsibilty is to fry one of the birds. i used to do it all..brine it, buy the oil, fry it. now everyone is a brining expert. i just get the raw bird, dry it, and dunk it.

one guy brought in a solid frozen bird to brine..WTF? today!! party is tomorrow. i had to scramble and think outside the box. i took the veggie box from inside the fridge, scrubbed it clean, put the bird in it, and trickled water into it. defrosting it fast.

i just walked into the kitchen..the bird is unwrapped, and is currently being brined in the same fridge box. it is so full, it cannot be moved. i asked if the bird was thawed, and he replied..almost. what the hell does that mean? and how are we going to get the entire container back into the fridge? he said, we could just leave it out overnight...errr..no. no effen way. now i will need to go and scrub out an icechest, dump the entire mess into it..and buy ice.

just how do these people live without diarrhea? am i being too cautious? i'm thinking of skipping the entire thing..maybe frying a softshell crab on the side and making a PO-BOY!

mmmmm..soft shelled crab PO-BOY..damn.

So....what kind of bacteria can live in brine and withstand a 350 degree dunk in oil?

The bacteria may die, but it's the toxins they produce that may not be eradicated by cooking.

I think Vash's concern goes beyond that.

In my experience people with that cavalier an attitude cross contaminate a lot of food stuffs without realizing it.

EX: Grilling chicken. They carry the raw chicken to the grill on a plate and will put the cooked chicken back on the plate without washing it first.

OMG..i would faint.

i admit. i go over the top. latex gloves, big baking sheets, substations for raw and cooked foods..i have themometers checking thermometers..

i have been hospitalized twice for food poisoning. it created a monster in me. it drives my wife crazy.

This spring, we threw a rib party at the LeMons race at Summit Point. Between me, Tim Walsh, his wife, and another guy, we did up 70 racks of ribs. Over the three days it took to make that happen, we obsessed over food safety. My worst nightmare was the fear of waking up the next morning and seeing a long line of crew and drivers lined up outside the mens' room with a raging case of the squirts. When I crawled out of my tent the next morning, that was actually the very first thing I checked (no line or faint moans of colonic discontent, whew).

I don't get it either. I really obsess over it...I would say it my restaurant background from another life - but my wife is still in that game and isn't half as fixated on food safety as I am.

80% of people can't cook much beyond a dozen or so things that they do all the time. Something out of their usual repertoire exposes their lack of basic knowledge.

This surprises you? Really?

JR

Latex gloves is going too far.

Agreed, what if one of your guests has a latex allergy.

I wash my hands after and before touching any other item.

I go bananas when I see others cook, and not heed basic food safety guidelines. After managing a restaurant throughout college, I still have ServSafe methodologies burned in my brain.

Heck, I still even keep a bucket of water, with a couple of tablespoons of bleach/washcloth in my kitchen

frying a turkey is an outside thing. i'm not in a kitchen with a sink and bar of soap. i use gloves, and change often.

Yes, a lost art - or never learned in the first place.

A turkey at home is one thing. Unwrap it, brine it, whatever.. You can give it the sniff test. Cook it, carve it, serve it, refrigerate the rest.

But any sort of public event is tough. Too many delays, too many people.. Turkey just seems to be more susceptible than most things.

What I run into more often are people that think that you'll instantly die from food poisoning if you don't cook all the juices out of meat. Ruining good food drives me crazy.

A frozen turkey today for a party tomorrow is a challenge. If it was me, I'd go get a fresh turkey tomorrow morning and start with that.

Put the turkey in a cooler with salted water and ice.

That's how you'd have to brine it anyway, if you don't have a brining container that can go in the fridge. If you do have such a container, then just move the bird and brine into that and then into the fridge.

I wouldnt use the vegetable box to brine the bird in the fridge, because it doesnt have a tight lid (cross contamination) and if it is the kind that slides on rails, the rails will break off under the weight.

Don't worry about saving the old brine, salt is cheap and so are peppercorns or whatever else you use.

Trader Joes has a good deal on brined turkeys.

You may find a brick of a bird even 24 hours later. I thought you only brined for an hour or so. If that's true, he needs a completely thawed bird.

So, I think there is a balance. I think we as a society have gone off the deep end about germs. I think people that are germ-ophobic or are nearly, are at an all time high. I think people need to relax some.

But, regarding the above. I don't put raw meat of any kind (but if there's got to be a worst, it would be chicken) on a plate, then cook the food, then use anything but fresh or washed stuff (plates, utensils, etc...) with the cooked that were used with the raw.

Hah, see you need an outdoor kitchen. Grill, sink, fridge, large prep counter.

That's how we roll in Tejas.