[Sca-cooks] Safety in the Kitchen

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hey all from Anne-Marie
A subject near and dear to my heart :) (I'm actually a trained
microbiologist)

We recently did a charity dinner that had to obtain a temporary kitchen
permit from the local county health department. This involved an
inspection, having someone with a food handlers permit on site at all
times and a long list of requirements.

I had called our inspector a few days before and chatted with her about
what she wanted to see, and what would make her happy :) (the joys of
working in a small enough county that the lady manning the phones is
your inspector as well :)).

1. long hair had to be contained. In my kitchens, most everyone wears a
hat of some kind. Women tend to wear turban type headdresses and men
wear coifs. All long hair was tied back in a ponytail at least, and
usually braided.

2. we were required to have a bucket of bleachy water with a rag in it
for disinfecting counters etc (personally I'd rather use a disposable
wiper for each use, so we went over and above on that one :))

3. any and all foods that were handled without subsequent cooking were
required to be handled using gloves. We used surgical ones since I could
steal those from work ;), but the cheap food handlers gloves are fine.
This meant everyone who processed the salad, garnish, and was dishing up
had to use gloves. Frequent changing was imposed by me :).

4. all hot foods were kept hot and cold foods were kept cold. Stuff was
kept cooking or in a hot oven until it was served. This meant that we
had to time things very carefully, but we did it :). She was very
impressed. We found that using roasting bags meant we could hold large
pieces ofm eat in the oven longer without overcooking.

5. no tasting by sticking your finger in the pot (this is my bad
one...I'm always doing that at home,and have to remember not to do it at
events), or re-using a tasting spoon. Pull some out with a clean spoon
or the stirry spoon and pour it into your tasting spoon that you have in
your pocket :).

6. no reusing dishes or spoons or nuthin without a complete sterilizing
wash. Since the kitchen we used last time had pretty primitive
dishwashing facilities, we just didn't reuse anything. Meant lots of
dishes, tho!

7. any outside cooking must be done under a cover. We frequent develop
and auxillary kitchen space outside using colemans, etc and just put
them under the roof overhang, etc. all pots must have lids, even if its
just a temporary foil one.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND natural fiber clothing and sensible no skid shoes
for any cooking setting and REQUIRE it for outdoor cooking using any
sort of flame. Linen is good, wool is better. (I have an old polyester
apron I use as an example of WHY. Scared straight works good :))

That's how we do it, anyway, and it works well for us :)
Hope this was helpful...
--AM
PS the Kitsap county health inspector was VERY impressed with us :)



-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Michael Gunter
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 7:35 AM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Safety in the Kitchen

>Why use unfinished wood tables? All tables in the mediaeval period
would
>have been finished, then scrubbed often as part of the cleaning
process.
>They would have been quite smooth. Or do you mean unoiled/unlaquered?
These
>are fine for this process - the wood will no doubt contain its own 
>anti-germ
>properties.
>
>Glenda.

This reminds me of somewhere I read that the kitchen crews (I think of 
Hampton
Court) would, after the cooking was finished, scrub the work tables with
salt and boiling water.

Gunthar

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