[Sca-cooks] Big Eggs

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Mina:
>ok, while I cannot give the scientific reasons why I would never (and I must
>stress never ) searve emu rare (sorry Adamantius,), I grew up eating all
>forms of game meat (kangaroo, goanno, wild pig, yabbies ect) I do not know
>any elder (please read Aboriginal Elder) or any other aboriginal actually
>who would touch under cooked emu, farmed or otherwise
>
>the meat is excellent in stews and roasted and can be used in all things ,
>
>I personlly love it marinaded and roasted
>
>Dominica

These sound like good reasons, in theory, for cooking it well, but I
was simply wondering if the reasons still apply. For example, there's
still a good and applicable reason for cooking chicken at least
medium-well, if not well-done, especially in the U.S.

On the other hand, there is almost no good reason for cooking pork
well-done, unless it's knuckles (or other connective-tissue-heavy
cut) or something in a stew, etc., because the primary reason for
doing so is a parasitic infestation that is a) now extremely rare in
pigs, and b) killed at the temperature required for medium-rare pork.
What remains, though, is the fact that many people's tastes, people's
concept of what constitutes properly cooked pork, is based upon this
outmoded idea that you must cook it to an internal temperature of at
least 185 or 190 degrees, Fahrenheit. (Blecch!) As a result, people
often expect it to be hard and dry (in comparison to, say,
medium-rare roast beef), and if it isn't, there's obviously something
wrong with it. Many people look upon juicy pork with great suspicion.

In the case of emu, if it is indeed wild game (and I would expect the
emu eaten by Aboriginal Elders to fall into this category), I would
expect there might be parasites, heartworms, I dunno what-all else.
And then there's the question of toughness, the need to dissolve the
collagen in the meat to make it sufficiently tender. See again, pig's
knuckles, beef chuck, etc.

However, what I and a couple of others have been trying to point out,
is that most emu is no longer wild game, any more than chicken is
--you can still hunt wild chickens in some parts of the world, but
what most of the population gets most of the time is a domestic,
farm-raised product. It is neither as old as the average hunted game
bird, nor as tough (not having to scratch for worms in the ground
will do that to you), nor is it susceptible to some of the diseases
and infestations found in an equivalent wild specimen. In the case of
chickens, this opens up other problem areas, such as salmonella, but
chickens aren't even ducks (which aren't, apparently, susceptible to
salmonella, for whatever reason), let alone emus.

The question now remains whether the prohibitions on rare emu are a)
disease/parasite-related, b) connective-tissue-related, or c) based
on preferences acquired and passed on when a) and b) were more
applicable than they are now. The last is a perfectly legitimate
reason for well-done emu, too, but what it _may_ come down to is that
you like it that way.

Just trying to understand the thinking behind it all... and
medium-rare emu really is very good, too.

Adamantius, amateur student of food prejudices