[Ansteorra] Food Vendors, menus & Ingredients

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Fri Mar 1 16:55:53 PST 2013


Jalali wrote about keeping kosher,
> My problem is cross-contamination, so I just don't.

On Fri, 1 Mar 2013, James Crouchet <james at crouchet.com> wrote:
> This is exactly why a Mongolian grill type setup would work well for
> people with food restrictions.  It is ALREADY set up so you pick
> each item that goes on your plate before they cook it.  You choose
> the meat or no meat.  You choose the veggies. You choose any sauce
> you want, or none at all. This is how they NORMALLY operate so they
> *don't have to make any special provisions* for onion allergies,
> vegetarian diets, or hatred of broccoli.

The ingredients you choose are dumped onto a shallow inverted wok to
cook, usually where a number of other meals of different compositions
have been cooked already since the last time it was cleaned.

You noted the problem with people with severe allergies: there is
cross-contamination.  At the restaurant where I've seen it, they do
periodically clean the wok, but just scrubbing with a wire brush and
hosing it down.  I have my doubts that that does any good against
severe allergy, and I do not remember hearing of many people who can
eat a small quantity of something without trouble but have a severe
reaction to larger amounts.  Furthermore, since the general public is
handling the food and (in my experience) there are a large number of
buckets of ingredients and sauces packed in a small space, there is
likely to be a larger chance of cross-contamination: someone trying to
ferry something to their plate accidentally drops some in an
intermediate buckets, it sits a while, someone later fishes it out a
ladle from a third bucket.

As I understand it, kosher or halal is not just "don't eat any
noticable quantities of pork", or even "scrub off the grill with a
brush before proceeding", but basically like a severe allergy: no
treif or haraam in the area, I think "cleaning" with a blowtorch or
some other severe methods, et cetera.

I agree that Mongolian barbeques are wonderful for picky eaters, and
for those who like a variety or large quantity of foods -- great for
haters of broccoli, bad for people who don't want their vegetarian
food to touch anything animal-related, impossible for many? most?
allergies, immediately impossible for kosher with the usual sorts of
ingredients available.

Danihel de Lindo Colonia
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com



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