Still have some time left to roast. Looking for 165F.
Food porn: Thanksgiving edition
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Tag Archives: Thanksgiving
From the uh, no, that’s not evidence-based file: ‘You never want to cook a turkey frozen.’
Thanksgiving food safety coverage is saturating the Interwebs and some of it is good (evidence-based) some isn’t.
Here’s a gem from WVIB in Buffalo:
“You never want to cook a turkey frozen,” said [James] Malley. Malley, who’s been a culinary instructor with the Buffalo Public Schools for 17 years, says it’ll be stuck in the danger zone – meaning it won’t be cooked all the way through to the proper temperature. “It will never cook thoroughly. It will never reach that point,” he said.
Uh no.
And Pete Snyder, the patron saint of turkey roasting (among other things) has an excellent, science-based HACCP SOP for cooking turkey from a frozen state. From Pete’s document:
Actually, cooking a turkey from the frozen state has benefits over cooking a thawed turkey. Cooking can be done in a roasting pan, but it is unnecessary. If one thaws a turkey in a home refrigerator, there is a significant risk of raw juice with pathogens at high levels getting on refrigerator surfaces, other foods in the refrigerator, countertops, and sink, thus creating a hazard and a need for extensive cleaning and sanitizing.
Thanksgiving is my favorite U.S. holiday
After six years in the U.S. celebrating Thanksgiving, this holiday is by far my favorite. The Canadian version occurs on a Monday with two days of weekend buildup and back to real life immediately after the meal. The American iteration is way better: one day of eating up front and a three-day weekend for recovery.
With football on television for 15+hrs each day.
We’ve finally figured out how to do it right, getting any visitors into town on Tuesday and doing meal prep Wednesday. Some veggie dishes are already made and the turkey is ready to go in to the roast pan.
A couple of years ago Matt Shipman and I put together some Thanksgiving meal videos – sorta our goofy take on food safety for the holidays.
And here are some timeless food safety infosheets for the holidays.
Bathing birds is a food safety mess
Avoid foodborne illness during the holidays
King Harvest has Surely Come: Everything you need to know about Canadian Thanksgiving
We decided to forgo the Canadian Thanksgiving this year for the first time – ever.
Two intense weekends of hockey, jobs, school, and turkey about $5 a pound (although they walk around the neighborhood and Amy could take one out with a crossbow and clean it in no time except they’re a protected species in Australia) means maybe I’ll use up the can of Spam.
And we’ll aim for the American one.
Funny or Die has its own take on my favorite celebration of the harvest.
In addition to being Indigenous Peoples’ Day, today is also another important holiday: Canadian Thanksgiving (or as they call it in Canada, “Canadian Thanksgiving”). To understand how our northern neighbor’s version of the holiday differs from our own, consume the following Fact Blast:
- On Canadian Thanksgiving, Canadians make a big roast turkey, clasp hands, and tell each other how grateful they are to be a family, just as at every other Canadian meal.
- Today is the traditional day for children to receive their first maple leaf tattoo.
- A common table centerpiece is a cornucopia filled with free healthcare.
- The holiday takes place two weeks after Canadian Halloween, which is the 31st of Canadian August, and always on a Monday, which is known as Canadian Thursday.
- Canadian Thanksgiving is a national holiday, but all Canadians still go to work in case Americans need anything.
- The holiday is always followed by “You’re Welcome, Eh” Day.
- The Prime Minister ceremoniously pardons a turkey, and also every criminal.
- The traditional Canadian Thanksgiving prayer goes, “Thank you Lord for all of Canada, except of course for Quebec.”
- There is also pie, but it is made with the Canadian equivalent of pumpkins, chewing gum.
- Canadian Thanksgiving marks the first day of Canadian Burning Man, an anarchistic (within reason) festival that culminates in a huge statue of “the man” being told politely “no thank you.”
- Canadian Thanksgiving does NOT involve playing mean pranks on Native Americas, as U.S. Thanksgiving does.
The sous vide of the suburbs: Cooking Thanksgiving in the dishwasher
Ben Raymond is an MS student at North Carolina State Universit yand self-proclaimed beer aficionado, focusing on food safety through social media, barf banter, and creating new foods.
Raymond writes:
As I wait impatiently for my girlfriend to come back from work in Boston, I’m hoping the freezing rain and sleet will hold off until later tonight. We have a three-hour drive this afternoon to Vermont, to visit my family for Thanksgiving.
Ben Chapman forwarded me a piece from the L.A. Times blog (thanks Michele -ben) on cooking a Thanksgiving dinner in the dishwasher (because I’ve become the dishwasher-cooking-food-safety guru of our group).
If you can’t seem to keep your Thanksgiving turkey moist in the oven, you may want to try your dishwasher. Yes, people have been using the kitchen washing machine to cook proteins and fish since the 1970s, but famed chef David Burke insists you can also use it to cook the star of your Thanksgiving meal.
But before you start shoving your entire turkey in the dishwasher, Burke’s recipe calls for two boneless turkey breasts, not the entire bird. The meat and herbs are packed tightly in plastic wrap then sealed in Tupperware containers before hitting the top shelf of the dishwasher for three cycles or about 3 hours and 25 minutes.
This cooking technique is getting some play in the social mediaverse as a way to make moist, tender chicken, fish, or even beef –sort of a sous vide for the suburbs (without the thermal immersion circulator).
Earlier this fall I did a quick and dirty test of this technique in my own dishwasher. With some nifty water-proof stainless data-loggers, I’ve run few cycles in the dishwasher to see if you can safely cook various proteins. Is it a safe method? The data I’ve generated points to, unsurprisingly, sort of.
Salmon cooks nicely and reaches a safe (and tender) time and temperature combination as suggested 145° F. Even poultry may be cooked safely in the dishwasher (at least in my home, no promises for any other setup), but only if you have expensive tools to monitor the cooking process. The data shows the proteins were held at temperatures below 165° F, but still hot enough and for sufficient time to effectively be cooked (as per FSIS’ appendix A. As a home cook, armed with a tip sensitive digital thermometer, the meat is unlikely to ever register the recommended 165° F internal temperature.
There’s lots of variability though. Other dishwashers may be hotter than mine, or not (we have very hot water in my house, over 145° F from the tap).
All of this effort the chicken I cooked in my dishwasher was gross. It never got hot enough for the proteins to really cook and move past the rubberyish texture of raw of chicken. I like my steaks medium rare, but poultry? No thanks. In my house we will be sticking with our traditional, yet boring, oven to roast our Thanksgiving bird.
Share your food (safety) porn this Thanksgiving
A walk through the farmers market, grocery store or restaurant will provide a glance into a not-so-new but increasingly prevalent subculture: cataloging food porn through smartphone cameras. This is spilling over into homes this week as my Facebook and Twitter feeds are already being populated with pics of turkeys brining and thawing.
There’s an abundance of tips and strategies for a safe and tasty Thanksgiving circulating on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and news websites. There’s not a plethora of pictures of the safety in action.
Started to increase the dialogue around food safety through Twitter and Instagram, the #citizenfoodsafety project has generated over 200 pictures of handwashing signs, dirty toilets, thermometers and cross-contamination since September.
Snap a pic of your food safety practices this Thanksgiving and tag with #citizenfoodsafety and/or an additional special hashtag for this weekend: #citizenturkey. Jump in, share pictures of your meal and food safety in action with the online food safety nerds.
317 sick in Foster Farms Salmonella outbreak; just cook it still doesn’t cut it; skating, hockey, Thanksgiving turkey
Amy, Sorenne and I began eight weeks of skating lessons at the local arena Satuday (I suck after seven years of no ice, thank you Kansas), started cooking the Canadian Thanksgiving feast at 3 a.m Sunday, and have had hockey on in the background since 4 a.m.
I try to be super-extra careful when cooking a big bird because of the potential for cross-contamination, and the potential of sickening a bunch 
of what-would-become former friends.
But in some cases, extra care is not enough.
As the Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak linked to Foster Farms hits 317 sick, Costco has ordered a recall of nearly 40,000 pounds of rotisserie chickens after one tested positive for Salmonella on Friday.
That’s a cooked chicken. To paraphrase Bill Marler, if Costco can’t cook the poop out of a bird, why are consumers expected to?
Still, company types, many government types and other types, insist all will be well if the chicken is just cooked properly.
This is a terrible message, and not scientifically accurate.
Chapman at least got a few correct points in when he told Live Science cross-contamination can happen at any point in the cooking and handling process, starting at the grocery store, don’t wash the bird, and use a damn thermometer.
(I gave one to an IT friend here for the Thanksgiving food orgy.)
After threatening Monday to close three Foster Farms processing plants, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed on Thursday to allow the plants to continue operating with advanced, super-secret safety procedures.
Neither the company nor USDA will say what these procedures are. Doesn’t build confidence.
Which would be an additional reason the list of retailers recalling Fosters products is growing.
Lynne Terry of the Oregonian writes that Costco’s El Camino Real store in San Francisco, Calif., is pulling and products over Salmonella contamination. The recall includes nearly 8,800 Kirkland Signature Foster Farms rotisserie chickens and more than 310 units of Kirkland Farm rotisserie chicken soup, rotisserie chicken leg quarters and rotisserie chicken salad.
The products were sold to Costco customers at the El Camino Real store between Sept. 11 and Sept. 23, the notice said. The chickens were processed at three Foster Farms plants in central California.
Fred Meyer and QFC stores have withdrawn chicken from the same plants. They were sold under the brand names of Simple Truth Organic and Kroger Value. The voluntary withdrawal also includes deli chicken and rotisserie chickens.
Melinda Merrill, Fred Meyer spokeswoman, said the stores are still selling the Foster Farms labeled poultry that came from a plant that’s not been implicated in the outbreak.
This outbreak differs in that the variety of salmonella is especially virulent.
There are seven strains of salmonella Heidelberg involved in the outbreak. Several of them are antibiotic-resistant and “one of the strains that we’ve tested is resistant to seven antibiotics,” said Christopher Braden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention division of foodborne diseases.
Of the people infected, 42% have been hospitalized — an unusually high percentage, according to the CDC.
“That’s about twice what we would normally see for a salmonella outbreak,” Braden said. “We think that’s at least in part due to the fact that a number of these strains have resistance to one or more antibiotics.”
Thirteen percent of those sickened have salmonella septicemia, a serious, life-threatening, whole-body inflammation, Braden said. Normal for salmonella would be “just a few percent,” he said.
In a statement, Foster Farms CEO Ron Foster said “we have worked relentlessly to address these issues and will continue to do so as we work to regain consumer trust and confidence in the Foster Farms brand.”
Those comments do not bolster consumer confidence.
If you’ve got a good food safety system, brag about it. Because some companies are better.
Turkey on the table; praise be to Canadian Thanksgiving
I paid $9.50/kg for the Canadian Thanksgiving turkey we’ll be carving this Sunday afternoon (after reaching a thermometer-verified 165F or higher; I’m not one of those you-can’t-over-cook-a-turkey-that’s-what-the-gravy-is-for folks).
That’s about $4.50 a pound.
I told the butcher, one of the few to stock turkey (he also has crocodile and kangaroo) that in North America it would be 
$0.99/pound. Market demand, I guess.
Turkey’s just not that big in Australia, even though we have dozens wandering the streets in our near-to-downtown Brisbane suburb.
The cooking instructions on the label are the same as last year – scientifically incorrect and suck. No safe cooking temperature, no thermometer advice, and says to wash the bird.
No one will be washing the bird in this house.
Last year we had about 30 people show up, and the locals were amazed by such a thing – a turkey.
Dr. Temple Grandin is featured in a video about the turkey industry designed to give the public a look at how the birds are raised, slaughtered and readied for Thanksgiving dinner.
The National Turkey Federation and the American Meat Institute paid for the video which features Grandin with a flock of 1,500 birds and takes the viewer all the way through the stunning and slaughter process.
I like the transparency. It undercuts any attempts at conspiracy theories.
But a 13-minute video? Edit it to two minutes.
My friend Jim Romahn asks, why hasn’t the Canadian turkey industry, which is far more organized than in the United States, done something like this long ago?
“I’m really pleased that the industry wanted the public to see this process because I think we need to show people how it’s just done right in a typical plant,” Grandin said in a news release.
“There’s a lot of good work going on in animal agriculture and I’m glad we’re telling our story openly and honestly.”
Brunch will be served Oct. 13 at 2 p.m. Show up if you’re around.
American Thanksgiving in Australia, 2012
Our own temperature-verified map of the world.
TSA says a little bit of gravy okay to take on a plane; a grenade is not
One of the greatest byproducts of having kids is that the grandparents visit us during the holidays. Traveling around Thanksgiving and Christmas can be a nightmare so I’m glad we’re not navigating airport gates and TSA security screening today with the millions of other modern-day pilgrims. If we were, I wouldn’t be taking food. According to TSA, food complicates the screening process.
When it comes to bringing items through checkpoints, we’ve seen just about everything. Traveling with food or gifts is an even bigger challenge. Everyone has favorite foods from home that they want to bring to holiday dinners, or items from their destination that they want to bring back home.
Not sure about what you can and can’t bring through the checkpoint? Here’s a sample list of liquid, aerosol and gel items that you should put in your checked bag, ship ahead, or leave at home if they are above the permitted 3.4 oz.
* Cranberry sauce
* Creamy dips and spreads (cheeses, peanut butter, etc.)
* Gift baskets with food items (salsa, jams and salad dressings)
* Gravy
* Jams
* Jellies
* Lotions
* Maple syrup
* Oils and vinegars
* Salad dressing
* Salsa
* Sauces
* Snowglobes
* Soups
* Wine, liquor and beer
You can bring pies and cakes through the security checkpoint, but please be advised that they are subject to additional screening.
So are grenades, as Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips found out in Oklahoma City.
Post thanksgiving gravy, some creamy dips, or salsa aren’t the best things to transport without refrigeration, less than 3.4oz or not. Gravy has been linked to lots and lots of outbreaks, particularly those associated with Clostridium perfringens. Julian Grass, MPH, a surveillance epidemiologist at the CDC Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch, and colleagues presented a summary of C. perfringens outbreaks at International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in March 2012.
C. perfringens outbreaks are often the result of improperly cooled food or food held at room temperature for extended periods.
Grass was cited as saying, “We thought it was particularly interesting that outbreaks peak during the holiday season, when people tend to gather in large groups to eat foods such as roasts, gravies, and poultry that are cooked in large batches or prepared ahead of serving.”
Grass told Medscape Medical News, “Our finding that meats are by far the most common vehicle of C. perfringens outbreaks speaks to the need for proper cooking, cooling, and hot holding of these foods.”
Pretty hard to properly hot- or cold-hold gravy during airplane travel. Jelly should be okay.
She Don’t Use Jelly from Slow•Nerve•Action on Vimeo.