Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Frozen to cooked in plastic to done – the bird worked out

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Amy and I usually host a Thanksgiving dinner for the Manhattan  (Kansas) stay-at-homes. With Amy almost 40 weeks pregnant and me driving to the Kansas City airport to pick up my youngest, Courtlynn, we kept things simple.

I was going to do another of those fresh turkey breasts, but the store was sold out. So in the name of science, or reality cooking, I got one of those Jennie-O turkeys I’d seen advertized. Pete Snyder has posted a method for cooking a bird direct from frozen, but I wanted to try out this technology.

The bird comes in a plastic bag, and while I’m not a fan of cooking things in plastic bags, this seemed to work. A half-dozen slits, into the oven, off the airport. Too much salt for my taste, and overcooked due to travel, but that’s what the gravy is for. And a day later, the leftovers are yummy.


 

You burnt the bird? A number of reasons to be thankful!

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Michéle Samarya-Timm, a Health Educator for the Franklin Township Health Department in New Jersey, writes,  Thanksgiving, and its hours of food prep, certainly creates a reason to appreciate sound food safety advice.  After all, 3 hours seated at the dinner table should never be followed by 3 days seated on a porcelain throne. 

Over the past few days, I’ve seen lots of advice to ensure a perfectly cooked (and foodsafe) thanksgiving turkey, but what if you’ve applied the cooking process a little too thoroughly?   

Amending a list I found several years ago, here’s an updated version of Reasons to Be Thankful for Burning the Bird:

1.    The useless pop-up timer was rendered useless.
2.    Your tip sensitive digital thermometer will read at least 165F.
3.    Salmonella won’t be a concern.
4.    Another valid reason for cooking stuffing outside the bird.
5.    No one will overeat.
6.    Post dinner sleepiness won’t be due to the tryptophan in turkey.
7.    Uninvited guests will think twice next year.
8.    Pets won’t pester you for scraps.
9.    The smoke alarm was due for a test.
10.    Ash residue is a great motivation for handwashing.
11.    Carving the bird will provide a good cardiovascular workout.
12.    After dinner, the guys can take the bird to the yard and play football.
13.    The less turkey Uncle George eats, the less likely he will be to walk around with his pants unbuttoned.
14.    You’ll get to the desserts quicker.
15.    No arguments about throwing out turkey leftovers.
16.    Next year you’ll pay closer attention to Doug Powell’s Canadian Thanksgiving food prep video.

Enjoy your holidays.  And wash your hands!

Yes Virginia, you can thaw turkey on the counter

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I’ve gotten more done around the house in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. Must be the nesting hormones. Amy figures she’s had enough. Baby’s due in a few days, but Amy would rather have it out now.  My youngest daughter, Courtlynn, arrives on Thanksgiving for five days, and we hope the baby arrives then as well.

But, there’s still work to be done, and every year, it’s the same issue. We say it’s OK for people to do what they are already doing – thawing turkey on the counter – and people freak out. After all, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and their extension types insist it is never OK to thaw turkey at room temperature.

We have lots of evidence and have written about it in peer-reviewed journals. But why doesn’t USDA or FDA, with all their resources, tell people why it’s not OK to thaw poultry at room temperature instead of repeating — as my friend Marty once quipped — like a fascist calling out country line dancing instructions, that it is never OK to thaw at room temperature?

Show us the data.

Pete Snyder at the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, Minnesota, has a summary available demonstrating the safety of thawing poultry at room temperature at http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Thaw-counter.html.

My group wrote a review note on the topic a few years ago, and it is included in its entirety at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2007/10/articles/food-safety-communication/how-to-thaw-poultry-ignore-government/

However you thaw your turkey, use a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer to ensure it has reached an internal temperature of 165F. The laws of physics are apparently different north of the 49th parallel and poultry is required to reach 180F. No one knows why the Canadian government has different advice. And they’re not telling anyone.
 

Turkey time: Food safety for the holidays

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In Canada, Thanksgiving is in October. It’s kind of cool because the weather can be nice (26C this year — and we’ve had snow all day today) and it’s not too long after Labour Day (an October holiday is fun).  This year, Thanksgiving was extra exciting because of Jack, the newest addition to the family (right, being compared, size-wise, to a half-eaten turkey).

For the past few years we’ve held thanksgiving at our house, and with the aid of Tyler Florence and a tip-sensitive digital thermometer things have been peachy. It’s my favourite Candian holiday. But, being a huge NFL and college football fan I also like U.S. Thanksgiving. Four days of football on television during the day is awesome.

One thing about U.S. Thanksgiving has always been a bit weird to me:  the presidential pardon of the White House turkey. I read today that the 2008 turkeys are from Ellsworth, Iowa. The 20-week-old turkey weighs about 45 pounds. Their names are chosen by public vote from a list: Popcorn & Cranberry; Yam & Jam, Dawn & Early Light; Roost & Run; Pumpkin and Pecan; and Apple & Cider. It’s all a bit creepy.

To get you in the holiday mood, the newest food safety infosheet focuses on the safey thawing, preparation and cooking of a holiday turkey. Thanx to Pete Snyder for his excellent information at Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management.

Click here to download the infosheet.

Sarah Palin and turkeys

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Amy the French professor is originally from Minnesota. She thought the 1996 movie, Fargo, was a linguistics masterpiece, what with its ‘Yah, you betchas’ and ‘you don’t says’ and demonstration of the ‘Minnesota nice’ conversational style.

Fargo seems like a distant memory, now that Sarah Palin has appropriated all the best lines.

Former VP candidate and current Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was in Wasilla today to do the traditional pardoning a local turkey ahead of Thanksgiving. Minutes later, a farm worker began slaughtering another turkey just a few feet behind her … plainly visible in the background of the video (below).

Governor Palin was told by the photographer what was going on behind her and allowed the interview to continue.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) could sign Governor Palin up as an undercover slaughterhouse worker. As the N.Y. Times reported Wednesday, PETA is asking for prosecution of workers at the Aviagen Turkeys plant in Lewisburg, W.Va., in a complaint filed with the local sheriff’s office under state laws regarding cruelty to animals. …

The Aviagen video can be seen at www.peta.org. The scenes show stomach-turning brutality. Workers are seen smashing birds into loading cages like basketballs, stomping heads and breaking necks, apparently for fun, even pretending to rape one. …

Bernard E. Rollin, a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University, said the workers’ actions were “totally unacceptable” and suggested that they be removed from working with animals and prosecuted.

Paula’s Southern Thanksgiving: Review by Guestblogger, Rock Salt

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My arteries hardened and my left arm started tingling as I watched Paula’s Southern Thanksgiving on The Food Network tonight. The menu alone was enough, including:

• deep-fried turkey, with a cavity that was subsequently filled with melted butter;

• turducken;

• bacon wrapped breadsticks;

• mama’s fried cream corn, with a ladle-full of butter and bacon and oil and grease; and

• sweet potato balls, filled with marshmallows.

I was looking for food safety errors, but Paula Deen is fairly good about washing her hands and cooks, deep-fries and broils anything living out of the food.

But a last-minute apple butter run had host Paula sticking her grubby paws into jars of malted candy balls, praline pecans, chocolate covered peanuts and whatever other candies were around.

Paula said,

“I’m telling you what, you bring a fat girl to a candy store, and you see how big her smile gets.”

Rock Salt says,

“Keep the norovirus and the hepatitis A and whatever else is in the poop on your hands out of the candy jars. Use the scoop.”

Canadian Thanksgiving dinner tonight – hopefully I won’t make anyone barf

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Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday – a celebration of the harvest with food, friends and family.

Canadian Thanksgiving is today, so in an effort to enhance Canadian Studies, or at least the ability of Kansans to be able to geographically identify Canada as that place up north, Amy and I host an annual dinner, for ex-pats and, this year, our students.

They never turn down food. We remember what it’s like to be students.

But the supermarket I frequent didn’t have whole turkeys – American Thanksgiving isn’t until the end of November. There was, however, a fresh, huge turkey breast, reduced for quick sale (which meant I couldn’t thaw my turkey on the kitchen counter). So I bought two, experimented, and will be using the trusty meat thermometer.

We’re going to go eat, when the other 10 people arrive.

A video will be up in a few days.
 

How to thaw poultry: ignore government

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I always thaw my turkey on the counter.

I put it in a roasting pan, to catch the juices, and more importantly, to prevent the cats from nibbling late at night. But with the Canadian Thanksgiving on Oct. 8, Health Canada has come out with its latest orders to Canadians, based on bureaucracy, not science, or even the best available evidence.

"Health Canada would like to remind all Canadians that there are simple steps they can take to help ensure their turkey feast is a safe one."

Food safety is not simple. If it was there wouldn’t be "between 11 million and 13 million cases of food-related illnesses in Canada every year" as the Heath Canada press release states.

Or consumers are just really stupid.

But more baffling is the lack of scientific references for Health Canada’s recommendations.

They say,

"Do not thaw your turkey at room temperature. Thaw turkey in the refrigerator or in cold water."

The water bit could lead to cross-contamination. And as myself and co-authors wrote in 2003,

"While several methods including thawing on the counter at ambient temperatures can be employed for thawing turkey, however, it is adequate cooking, validated with a meat thermometer, that is the more critical step."

The Health Canada advice got it right with the use a meat thermometer bit. But that’s it. Messages like consumers are too stupid to safely thaw meat on the counter are patronizing, patriarchial, and certainly not effective. And when Health Canada and the groups they cite, like the Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education — snappy name there — provide references in peer-reviewed journals, then maybe the rest of us will take them seriously.

Until then, they’re just hacks, offering advice based on bureaucracy, not evidence.