[Sca-cooks] Trying again

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>I posted a message yesterday with some food safety questions of
>my own.  Since no one had any answers, I'm wondering if it didn't
>arrive.  So here I go again.
>
>What foods are *safe* at room temperature, and what makes them
>unsafe?

See, Brighid, everyone is waiting to see what everyone else is going
to say about this, because it's a tough question. A comprehensive
list or chart would be difficult. While there are foods that can be
stored for some time at room temperature, there are almost none (with
the possible exception of Cheez Whiz) that are miraculously
incorruptible.

Now, I'm pretty sure this isn't what you're asking, so maybe, with
your permission and help, we can work on rephrasing the question to
something a little more specifically addressable. I know you're
working on a feast in, what, a week or so, and you want to know which
foods won't need refrigeration? Probably the best thing would be to
prioritize your ingredients, refrigerate first the things that really
obviously need it, then the iffy items in order of priority, until
you run out of room, and the hope is to achieve a compromise between
available space and a reasonable degree of food safety.

>   For example, I know that onions are kept about room
>temperature.  What about chopped onions?  Or onions that have
>been parboiled?  Cooked beans?

Whole, unpeeled, raw onions can be kept fairly indefinitely at room
temperature because they're more or less alive. Chopped onions are
less viable for that; I would certainly try to observe the usual
Board of Health's (or Sanitation Dept.'s) rules regarding the
temperature "danger zone" and the [often] two-hour time limit
included therein. I'd try to store chopped, raw onion in a container
that provides for some drainage, even if you put a couple of clean
towels on the bottom of the container.

Cooked onions and/or cooked beans, well, the usual one- or two-hour
prep rule (which says that you can have these foods out at room temp
for prep purposes for periods of up to two hours, or whatever the
local rule is for you) applies, in theory. Given the choice of eating
them after being stored at room temperature or eating a steak that's
been left out overnight, you can guess which I would choose. You can
usually tell when cooked vegetables are going off, though. They begin
to ferment and, frankly, to stink, so in extreme cases no one would
get close enough to them for any food-borne dangers to be applicable.

>I know that foods containing milk or eggs or meat have to be kept
>hot or cold, but there's a lot of other things I'm not sure about.

Let's see. Yes, meat, fish, milk, eggs. Uncooked rice, pastas,
grains, raw whole onions, uncooked beans, can be stored for some time
at room temp. Cooked rice is probably safe for a while; I know most
of the sleazy Chinese takeout places store it in a colander at room
temperature, at least a day's supply, more or less all day, and it
appears to be safe that way, under those conditions, anyway. Your
local health authorities will probably have a different view.

Hmmm. What else would be in a Spanish, late-period feast? Cooked
eggplant? After about three hours I'd become concerned, but it would
depend on several cooking variables. Things like honey, butter,
olives, will all keep for a while at room temp. Bread is fine. You
cider sauce will probably be fine for several hours, but not forever.
In general, precooked foods with relatively low moisture content,
very high or very low pH's, and/or a high salt or sugar content, are
less likely to spoil quickly than foods without these qualities.
Oily/fatty foods may (or may not) survive better for the oxygen
exclusion.

Maybe the easiest thing would be to make a list of the things you're
not sure about, and we can talk about them specifically, or else it's
going to be a long day ;-) . It's not that this is an impossible
topic to discuss in this way, but dealing with it can involve a
certain amount of experience and intuition, so for now I think the
best thing would be for you to ask about the specific foods you're
thinking of.

Adamantius