"Done" meats was: RE: SC - alcohol revisited

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"UnruhBays, Melanie A" wrote:
> 
> The perception of many people is that if it's not *really* done, it's not
> "done".
> 
> I once did ducks for a feast. The thermometer read within the "done" range
> (160-165 degrees for medium-rare to medium), the legs were pretty much
> falling out of their sockets, the juices were running clear. Know what? I
> got complaints about them not being done. It seems that a duck can be
> *quite* red near the joints when it's done. Sometimes chicken can be, too.
> Pork can have clear juices and be up to temp, and still look a little pink,
> too.

Of course, in the case of ducks and geese, they're not susceptible to
the primary disease that would make it necessary to cook, say, chickens
or turkeys more well done. The main reason why duck shouldn't be eaten
rare is because of the connective tissue in the legs. Which, as you say,
were nearly falling out of their sockets. Furthermore, the temperature
to which chickens get cooked to be considered done is pretty appalling;
salmonella dies like a dog at 157 degrees Fahrenheit; 160 to 165 is just
a safety measure in case your thermometer isn't calibrated perfectly,
and then there is carry-over cooking. A chicken cooked to 165 gets up to
175 or 180; a chicken cooked to 185 or 190, by the time it finishes
cooking in its own stored ambient heat, can get upwards of 200 degrees.
Why not just buy your plywood already cooked? 
> 
> I think it's important to consider that sometimes it's the perception of the
> people who are eating. Not always - I've gotten meat that I didn't consider
> done, too - but sometimes. The USDA says, "The color of cooked meat and
> poultry is not always a sure sign of its degree of doneness." (See
> http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/pinkturk.htm for more information.) But
> people are so terrified of undercooked poultry that they won't touch it if
> it looks the least bit undercooked. (I think that the Thanksgiving turkey is
> one of the worst victims of "poultry-fear".)

I've been ex-_treeeem_-ly lucky myself, with a good enough local
reputation (or something) that people will at least sometimes listen to
me when I chant, "Thischickenhasbeencookedtofifteendegreesabovesafetemperaturenosalmonellaherethankyewverymuch..."
 
> Maybe some cooks will fail to check more than one bird, or over-fill pans,
> but I think it's more likely that people today are just instilled with fear
> about everything they put into their mouth! Let's worry more about
> cross-contamination of ingredients and proper dish- and handwashing in the
> kitchen; I think we'd have a lot fewer problems.

I can't agree more. To the best of my recollection, I have had one
chicken unconditionally rejected for underdoneness (I do check them
_all_, normally, but can only assume I missed one somehow, and that must
have been the one that was still semi-frozen or something like that).
Luckily, on that occasion I happened to have, in my hands at the time,
the bird I had just carved and reasembled for the kitchen staff (one of
two such chickens I had saved), and was able to put a warm, fully cooked
bird into the hands of the "victim" before he had finished speaking.

I think I've had the most problems with pork ["Waaaah, trichinosis! Burn
it to ashes!!!"]. My usual solution is to cook it to 155 or so, let it
cook itself up to 160 or 165, then serve it juicy and ivory-white, with
a slight shine to every slice. Once I even had a herald paraphrase a
section from Le Menagier de Paris, in a speech to the servers that could
clearly be heard across the feast hall: "It is a well-known fact that
Germans prefer their pork overcooked. If there are any German guests out
in the hall, you may bring their portions back to the kitchen to be
reheated until done to their taste, but the cooks will not destroy good
meat for a few with peculiar tastes." Very arrogant, very French, and,
as it turned out, highly effective. I left the pancake griddle on, so
slices placed on it would be cooked through almost instantaneously; I
believe I had two takers that night, out of perhaps 100 people. Both
were in good humor throughout the exchange, and they stumbled out
apologies and thanks in very bad German.

On the other hand, I was also once flat-out accused of serving
"dangerously raw pork"... in writing, I might add, allegedly at feasts
where I've taken extreme care to take the temperature of every single
roast. There's no accounting for tastes, but it was fun to respond, in
writing, with a brief primer on temperatures, food safety, food
preferences, and the voluntary embrace of ignorance.
   
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com