[HN Gopher] The Peking Duck Exception
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Peking Duck Exception
        
       Author : Cenk
       Score  : 106 points
       Date   : 2022-12-05 12:06 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.culinarycrush.biz)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.culinarycrush.biz)
        
       | onethought wrote:
       | Nitpick: Peking is not a romanisation, it's the Cantonese word
       | for Beijing butchered by English accent.
       | 
       | Likely relating to many early interactions with China occurring
       | in the Guangdong region.
        
       | crumpled wrote:
       | Kirishima Japan has a regional dish: Chicken Sashimi
       | 
       | Personally, I'm not brave enough.
        
         | thinkingemote wrote:
         | I had some chicken sashimi in Japan. It was mildly seared on
         | the outside, I guess to kill any bad germs but quite raw in
         | most of it and quite tasty too.
         | 
         | I had it in a large restaurant in Kyoto called "Bird"
        
         | brazzy wrote:
         | Wait until you hear about Mett:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett
        
         | mlex wrote:
         | Had this once in Osaka, definitely had food poisoning the next
         | few days.
         | 
         | I mostly blame myself for thinking it would be a good idea. It
         | did taste pretty good though.
        
       | bombcar wrote:
       | Isn't the key the 350deg F for 60 minutes afterwards?
       | 
       | Doesn't an internal temperature of 160deg F kill everything
       | except some weird toxins?
       | 
       | I suspect that most meat left overnight at room temperature and
       | then cooked "well done" would be perfectly fine.
        
         | chasil wrote:
         | Aminita "death cap" mushrooms are one substance that I know of
         | that remains toxic after exposure to high heat over time.
         | 
         | "Amatoxins cannot be destroyed by any conventional cooking
         | method, including boiling or baking. Freezing or drying the
         | mushrooms also fails to remove any amount of amatoxin..."
         | 
         | https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/most-dangerous-mushroom...
        
         | gspencley wrote:
         | > Doesn't an internal temperature of 160deg F kill everything
         | except some weird toxins?
         | 
         | It's worth noting that food safety is not limited to living
         | micro-organisms but includes everything from physical objects
         | (choking on a chicken bone) to the bi-products of micro-
         | organisms (such as alcohol or the toxin that causes botulism).
         | Although bacteria produces the botulism toxin, the toxin itself
         | can't be rid of afterwards through temperature.
        
           | Xamayon wrote:
           | In the case of botulism toxin, it's actually the opposite.
           | The spores are extremely resistant to temperature, but the
           | toxin can be destroyed by boiling at normal temp/pressure
           | until all parts have been fully exposed to those temps. Other
           | toxins are still an issue though, and many are heat
           | resistant, so not a good idea to eat potentially contaminated
           | foods.
        
             | gspencley wrote:
             | Ah thanks! It's been a few years since I took a food
             | handling safety course and I remembered Clostridium
             | botulinum being called out as something that "heat won't
             | kill" but you're right, it's the spores, not the toxin
             | itself.
             | 
             | But yeah, as you also pointed out, bi-products that can
             | cause illness are separate issues from "killing living
             | organisms that cause illness", and heat is not always the
             | magic solution. Heavy metal poisoning is another example of
             | something that heat will not take care of.
        
             | thfuran wrote:
             | Botulinum toxin is even less heat resistant than that. Five
             | minutes at 185 F will take care of it. Though boiling would
             | certainly get the job done.
        
         | mecsred wrote:
         | The thing that does the damage are the toxins the bacteria
         | produce, not usually the bacteria themselves. If you leave the
         | food in the danger zone, the bacteria colonies multiply wildly,
         | producing whatever metabolic products the entire time. Even if
         | you then cook the food and kill the bacteria colony, it won't
         | necessarily denature or destroy the toxin. The seems like the
         | key part of the recipe to me is actually the antibacterial
         | properties of the marinade!
        
           | scotteric wrote:
           | It seems that the marinade goes on after the overnight drying
           | though. That puzzled me since the bacteria would be free to
           | reproduce.
        
             | hammock wrote:
             | What bacteria? The skin is treated with boiling water prior
             | to drying.
        
           | m3047 wrote:
           | This is actually backwards for botulinum. Boiling denatures
           | the toxin, but doesn't kill the critter; you need to use a
           | higher temperature, e.g. that produced by pressure cooking /
           | canning. So I'd be curious what bacteria are being referred
           | to.
        
       | hammock wrote:
       | What is perplexing about it? Most/all bacteria on the skin is
       | sterilized by the boiling water. So the only growth on the bird
       | during drying would come from additional bacteria introduced from
       | the environment, which would be low levels, and then the bird is
       | baked which would kill any of that off. There is very little risk
       | of, e.g. botulinum toxins building up either as a result of this
       | process. Seems safe if you understand food safety.
        
         | Dylan16807 wrote:
         | Twelve entire hours sounds like plenty of time for bacteria on
         | the inside to grow.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Why would there be bacteria (of material concern) on the
           | inside? Where would it come from?
           | 
           | Beef is dry aged for 60 days at 40F and 75+% RH, and no one
           | has concerns about a raw center of a dry aged steak. A half-
           | day at 70F seems equivalent if not less severe
        
             | Dylan16807 wrote:
             | That's inside a single muscle. This is a whole bird where
             | the inside has been messed with extensively.
        
             | ethbr0 wrote:
             | The animal's intestine. Which is why the cooking safety
             | question is more of a question about how the animal was
             | slaughtered and butchered.
             | 
             | See comments above about how US meat safety concerns are
             | usually a consequence of slaughtering and butchering in the
             | most cost effective manner.
        
               | hammock wrote:
               | I would think the intestinal bacteria would remain (by
               | biological design) in the intestinal parts of the animal,
               | at least for 12 hours. No data on this though. You may be
               | right
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | Oh, I'd imagine they do! Until you rupture and/or
               | submerge them, because it's cheaper to process birds that
               | way.
        
       | Mikeb85 wrote:
       | Hung at room temperature overnight? Nah, it's typically hung in a
       | refrigerated and ventilated cooler (before it's cooked)... Never
       | seen a recipe that says it should be hung at room temperature.
       | 
       | Whole article is based on a strawman.
       | 
       | Edit: Even the "evidence" of healthcode violations used in the
       | article is of hanging the COOKED duck in the window, not the raw
       | duck. Restaurants (yes, even Chinese ones) use a cooler to hang
       | the raw duck because the ambient temperature is way too hot.
        
         | ribs wrote:
         | When I first tried making it in...1994, I believe, the
         | instructions I had from cookbooks didn't say anything about
         | refrigeration. Looking briefly on the internet right now, I see
         | a mixture. What I know for sure is that I hung it from a
         | fixture on my ceiling. I wish I could remember exactly what I
         | thought of this at the time.
         | 
         | (It came out great BTW)
        
       | denimnerd42 wrote:
       | The food safety in general from my Chinese in-laws gives me panic
       | attacks. Mostly related to meat. But they also don't do dumb
       | things like we do such as eating raw cilantro from Mexico.
        
         | vehemenz wrote:
         | It goes both ways. Americans are way too casual with lunchmeat
         | and prepping raw meat and vegetables on the same surfaces.
        
           | CoastalCoder wrote:
           | I'm curious why you consider this an American thing.
           | 
           | I'm American, and I'm pretty careful about those details.
        
         | athenot wrote:
         | What's wrong with raw cilantro from Mexico? Geniune question.
        
           | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
           | Raw cilantro in Mexico may have been washed with raw water
           | from Mexico.
        
             | ghaff wrote:
             | I'm going to rinse it but raw (as in uncooked) cilantro is
             | omnipresent in Mexican and Thai cooking in particular.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | bjterry wrote:
       | No one in this thread (nor in the article) has made the obvious
       | observation that this means there are a massive variety of
       | genuinely safe foods that could be made via currently banned
       | practices. You can only get an exception at great cost for foods
       | with existing cultural practice. Some real innovations, like the
       | initial invention of the Peking duck, are basically prohibited.
        
       | ectopod wrote:
       | The science bit says it's safe because the seasoning inhibits
       | microbial growth during the drying period, but the recipe at the
       | top applies the seasoning after the drying period. Something
       | doesn't add up.
        
       | gernb wrote:
       | I thought this was going to be about the fact that the
       | traditional way of step 2
       | 
       | > 2. Air is pumped into the crevice between the duck's skin and
       | meat, allowing the skin to balloon and separate from the meat.
       | 
       | Is to blow the duck up like a balloon with your mouth
       | 
       | https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/687850/Saturday-K...
       | 
       | PS: it doesn't turn me off in the least and I find many food
       | safety rules to be ludicrous, protectionism, and counter
       | productive.
       | 
       | For example: I find that the requirement to wear gloves while
       | preparing food that I see people touching things they would be
       | less likely to touch with their bare hands, touching, and then
       | continuing to prepare the foods. For me, without gloves I can
       | tell when my hands are dirty and wash them but when gloves I feel
       | nothing and am therefore less likely to wash. Have no proof that
       | this is true for everyone but I'm fairly confident that if I had
       | hidden cameras looking for violations I'd find more for people
       | using gloves than not.
       | 
       | Also in a similar vain there's sushi
       | 
       | https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/22/national/gloves...
       | 
       | There are plenty of other bad food regs
       | 
       | https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/11/americans-r...
       | 
       | https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/why-americans-dont-get...
        
       | Ekaros wrote:
       | > 3. The duck is propped up, and boiling water is poured onto its
       | skin until the skin tightens.
       | 
       | This is also probably somewhat effective in killing some amount
       | of pathogens at least on the outside. Not sure if same is done
       | for cavity.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | DebtDeflation wrote:
       | Wait until the author finds out how prosciutto is made. You take
       | the (raw) hind leg of a pig, cover it in salt, and hang it in a
       | cool dry place for 9 months to two years. Then you take it down,
       | scrape off all the mold, slice it thinly, and enjoy its
       | deliciousness. That's right, prosciutto is raw pork that was left
       | unrefrigerated for months or years until covered in mold.
        
         | TheRealPomax wrote:
         | Right, so: you take the kind of raw meat that is so thick that
         | any contaminants you might get during carving is surface
         | contamination, then cover it in a substance that kills any
         | bacteria or molds that it comes into contact with, making sure
         | to use enough salt to prevent subsequent contamination for as
         | long as it takes for the surface to dry and form an
         | impenetrable layer, and then we let it age for however long we
         | like because it is now physically impossible for surface
         | contaminants to make it into the meat anymore.
         | 
         | Which is completely different from leaving wet meat to just
         | hang out at room temperature for many hours.
        
           | ethbr0 wrote:
           | Also, obligatory step with most of these things: smell it. If
           | it smells bad, throw that example out.
           | 
           | We survived for a few hundred thousand years without an
           | ability to see or quantify microbiology.
           | 
           | Our noses are pretty damn effective.
        
             | mumblemumble wrote:
             | That "we" in "we survived" is doing an awful lot of work.
             | "We" also survived many rounds of bubonic plague and
             | suchlike. Those who didn't, though, presumably don't get to
             | count themselves among that "we".
             | 
             | For the purposes of these kinds of conversations, I think I
             | might prefer some sober estimates of costs and benefits
             | over platitudes.
        
         | satvikpendem wrote:
         | The salt inhibits growth. It's no different than curing and
         | salting other meats, it's perfectly safe. See also, dry aging,
         | it doesn't necessarily sit in a fridge yet it's still safe as
         | long as you cut off the pellicles.
        
         | Aunche wrote:
         | First of all, the salt kills all the harmful bacteria. I don't
         | know how true this is, but it's said that mammal meat is denser
         | than poultry meat, bacteria can't grow inside of it (or at
         | least have a lot more difficulty growing inside. Duck
         | prosciutto is a thing too though, so maybe it's just chicken?
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | Or: https://montagne-hautlanguedoc.com/recettes-de-cuisine-
         | tradi... Faisandage.
         | 
         | Also, this is BS: "Peking duck, which also owes its name to a
         | romanized name for Beijing"
         | 
         | No, it is no more Romanized than "Beijing"... One is Wade-
         | Giles, the other Pinyin Romanization.
        
           | smegsicle wrote:
           | beijing is a city in china
           | 
           | the term 'peking duck', much like the more common spelling
           | 'beijing', are based on romanizations of the name of the city
           | of beijing, china, which is a city, and not a romanized name
           | for itself
           | 
           | bringing up the fact that 'beijing' is a different kind of
           | romanization is only useful if the audience needs to be
           | educated on different kinds of romanizations, which is the
           | point of contention between the author of the duck article,
           | Preston Landers, and 'mc32', which is four ascii characters,
           | and not a person
        
           | vehemenz wrote:
           | Use vs. reference.
           | 
           | 'Peking' is a romanized name for Beijing. So is 'Beijing.'
           | Had the author said "a romanized name for 'Beijing,'" then
           | you would have a had a point. Sure, you could use 'Bei Jing
           | ,' but that is unnecessarily confusing.
        
             | mc32 wrote:
             | That's my point, they're both "romanizations" One is one
             | type, the other another. There have been other
             | romanizations as well and in addition there are things like
             | bopomo. And, yes, it would make sense to me to say Peking
             | is a romanized transliteration of the Chinese character for
             | the locale [in the mandarin dialect.]
        
               | vehemenz wrote:
               | The author raises the point about 'Peking' because many
               | people don't know that it's a romanization of Beijing.
               | You are suggesting that the author is incorrect to omit
               | the commonly known romanization? Develop the argument.
        
               | zerocrates wrote:
               | They just want it to say "an alternative romanization of
               | Beijing" or something like that instead. As written it
               | sort of implies that "Peking" is the result of
               | romanization while "Beijing" is not.
        
               | jacobr1 wrote:
               | While I don't think this was intended - there is a
               | movement to use place-names as preferred by their
               | inhabitants, rather than their "colonial" names.
               | Regardless of the historical context or the merits of
               | linguistic descriptivism. So for example you have Mumbai
               | or Turkiye. So the _implication_ for someone that didn't
               | have the context regarding romanization, is that Peking
               | is the "colonial" name, now requiring updating to less-
               | racist standards.
        
               | ponow wrote:
               | Oh, are you the type to slip in a mention of your recent
               | bread-run to Paris, keeping the "s" silent?
        
               | jacobr1 wrote:
               | Hah, no, I'm the type of person annoyed by such things
               | and thus aware of them.
        
               | mc32 wrote:
               | Eh, I rather go by whatever a language one is speaking
               | calls something:
               | 
               | For example, are you going to write in to Chinese radio
               | and news outlets and insist they use English names for
               | cities in Anglo north America and Spanish for cities in
               | Latin America? They use phonetically semi-close analogues
               | for major geographical place names[1].
               | 
               | What about Latin American speakers and their translations
               | of US and Canadian cities into Spanish, is that now
               | frowned? And who cares about what a despot says a country
               | should be called (be they Turkey or Burma)?
               | 
               | Do I have to say Koln instead of Cologne, Roma/Rome,
               | Espagna/Spain, Torino/Turin? Or Myanmar instead of Burma?
               | But, whait.. what do I do when the locals have a
               | dialectal non-official variant?
               | 
               | [1]
               | 
               | Alabama (A La Ba Ma  - A la ba ma)
               | 
               | Alaska (A La Si Jia  - A la si jia)
               | 
               | Arizona (Ya Li Sang Na  - Ya li sang na) [asia, profit,
               | mulberry, that]
               | 
               | Arkansas (A Ken Se  - A ken se)
               | 
               | California (Jia Li Fu Ni Ya  - Jia li fu ni ya)
               | 
               | Colorado (Ke Luo La Duo  - Ke luo la duo)
               | 
               | Connecticut (Kang Nie Di Ge  - Kang nie di ge) [health,
               | nirvana, digger]
               | 
               | Delaware (Te La Hua  - Te la hua)
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | > They use phonetically semi-close analogues for major
               | geographical place names[1].
               | 
               | No, just like everyone else, they use whatever their
               | names are without worrying even the slightest bit about
               | whether those names are phonetically close to the native
               | pronunciation.
               | 
               | I notice you forgot to list San Francisco.
        
               | mc32 wrote:
               | Heh, no, I did not, but it's down the list
               | alphabetically. I mean, the above stray far enough from
               | pronunciation where locals would have a hard time
               | understanding without some context (like, I'm going to be
               | pronouncing a state name, try and guess which one) that
               | it's not necessary to show the pronunciations that have
               | no basis in local pronunciation.
               | 
               | But, yeah, I totally agree. Use whatever the language
               | you're using at the moment uses. Like I'm going to figure
               | out what the "real" pronunciation is for Ex-USSR
               | locales...
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | (On the topic of San Francisco, I'm always... bemused...
               | by the city's insistence on referring to itself as San
               | Fan Shi  in its own Chinese documents. https://sf.gov/zh-
               | hant/about-this-website )
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | ponow wrote:
               | Hilarious. I think the criterion is that you have to
               | change your pronunciation if someone claims you have
               | power: a kind of punching up / revenge.
        
               | jacobr1 wrote:
               | There are plenty of people that will gleefully try to
               | correct you if you write Burma rather than Myanmar these
               | days. I don't think it is a _good_ trend. But it really
               | is a trend.
        
           | onethought wrote:
           | Peking is the Cantonese word for Beijing
        
             | gwd wrote:
             | NB this works both ways on a lot of things. For instance,
             | the Chinese word for "guitar" is Ji Ta ; pronounced "ji ta"
             | in Mandarin, but "gat1 taa1" in Cantonese. Similary for
             | "Canada" (Jia Na Da ): jia na da in Mandarin, and gaa1 naa4
             | daai6 in Cantonese.
             | 
             | It's a weird side-effect of two facts: 1) the British
             | interacted a lot more directly with Canton than the rest of
             | China 2) Mandarin and Cantonese are "officially" different
             | dialects of the same language, so once you define the
             | characters in one, you've mostly defined them in the other.
             | 
             | (Some exceptions seem to include "bus" and "taxi", which in
             | HK are obviously based on the English words, but Mandarin
             | has their own, self-describing names for.)
        
               | odiroot wrote:
               | And then you also have Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew. Spending
               | some time in Malaysia and Singapore, you can hear all of
               | these (plus Malay) mixed into a single English-language
               | sentence. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the colonial
               | language migrated back with the Brits.
        
           | ajross wrote:
           | FWIW: my understanding is that there's a dialect issue at
           | work too. The folks providing the pronunciation to a
           | transliterator that became "Peking" said the name of the city
           | somewhat differently than the people living in Beijing today
           | do.
        
             | glxxyz wrote:
             | Not really, under the old Wade-Giles romanization system
             | the city was transliterated as 'Peking'. Under the newer
             | (~65 year old) pinyin system it's transliterated as
             | 'Beijing'. The pronunciation in Mandarin never changed,
             | just the way that sounds which don't have any exact
             | equivalent in our alphabet are represented.
             | 
             | Chang used to be a very common Chinese surname, but Zhang
             | is now. It's the same name.
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | > under the old Wade-Giles romanization system the city
               | was transliterated as 'Peking'
               | 
               | Not even close. Under the old Wade-Giles system the name
               | of the city is transliterated as 'pei-ching'. That is
               | because, as you note, the pronunciation in Mandarin
               | didn't change. You seem to be imagining a sound that
               | might be interpreted as a K or, alternatively, might be
               | interpreted as a J, but there is no such sound.
        
               | glxxyz wrote:
               | > You seem to be imagining a sound that might be
               | interpreted as a K or, alternatively, might be
               | interpreted as a J
               | 
               | No, not at all
        
               | glxxyz wrote:
               | Well, at least close-er, yes the 'k' is older than Wade
               | Giles, the changes in spelling are still just changes in
               | romanizations systems.
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | No, that's not correct. The 'k' in Peking is there
               | because Peking is not a transcription from Mandarin. The
               | change was in what language to use for the name of the
               | city, not in what romanization system to use.
        
               | glxxyz wrote:
               | I didn't say the k was a romanization, I said it was
               | older.
        
               | mc32 wrote:
               | Yep, this is the reason. The same reason they use 'q',
               | 'c' and 'x' etc., they don't correspond to English, or
               | Italian pronunciation of those letters. They are
               | "pronunciation keys" and Wade-Giles was the same. Just
               | represented differently.
        
             | mc32 wrote:
             | Yeah, Peking is much closer to the Cantonese pronunciation
             | of the city, however, I think the guys who came up with the
             | romanization did live in the north capital city. On the
             | other hand Wade-Giles is more prevalent in Singapore, HK
             | and Taiwan, for example --though in some instances they are
             | starting to follow the pinyin transliteration.
        
               | glxxyz wrote:
               | Wade-Giles is more prevalent in places that kept
               | Traditional characters, because the mainland switched to
               | Simplified and pinyin in the 1950s.
        
         | noefingway wrote:
         | Just like good old country ham here in the US. I get one every
         | year, been eating it since I was a kid. Dry, crusty, some mold
         | on the outside. Clean it off an slice it, or soak it for a
         | couple of days then bake it. Either way it's staple here on the
         | farm.
        
       | ioblomov wrote:
       | Reminds me of an article I came across once about artisanal
       | French cheese. The gist was that the French would much rather
       | risk potential illness from raw-milk cheese than give up the
       | pleasure of eating it.
       | 
       | Growing up in an immigrant family and having lived in Spain a
       | spell, I've come to realize Americans are much too paranoid when
       | it comes to food safety.
        
         | Mikeb85 wrote:
         | Raw milk cheese is safe after a certain age since the good
         | bacteria eliminate the bad bacteria.
        
           | cheeze_whizz wrote:
           | That's not true. First of all, as cheese ages all the
           | bacteria (and fungi and yeasts) inside it die out because
           | they run out of food to eat. You see, they're trapped in a
           | solid lump of protein so they have nowhere to go. So they die
           | of hunger. That does make the cheese safe to eat so cases of
           | food poisoning from hard cheeses that tend to age for more
           | than three months, are virtually unheard of.
           | 
           | Second, whether good bacteria will outnumber the "bad"
           | depends on how many of each ... goodness value? there were at
           | the start. If your raw milk is contaminated with sufficiently
           | high numbers of coliform bacteria (E coli and friends) there
           | is no amount of bacterial goodness that can make that milk
           | good for cheesemaking. Most likely you're looking at "early
           | blowing" (literally the cheese blowing up like a rugby ball,
           | with a great big fissure in its center, because of gasses
           | released by bacteria early in its maturation).
           | 
           | Third, some "good" and "bad" bacteria can coexist quite
           | happily with each other simply because they do not consume
           | the same resources and so do not compete for them.
           | 
           | Don't have a fourth one for you.
        
           | jacobr1 wrote:
           | Wouldn't that also apply to pasteurized cheese? Cultures are
           | usually introduced which I would expect to outproduce bad
           | bacteria just like with raw-milk cheese.
        
             | Mikeb85 wrote:
             | Yes it does also apply to pasteurized cheese. But
             | pasteurized cheese is safe at any age (young ones safe
             | because of pasteurization step, older ones because of good
             | bacteria). And slightly less flavourful.
        
               | cheeze_whizz wrote:
               | My informed opinion as a cheese maniac is that raw or
               | pasteurized milk doesn't make any perceptible difference
               | in cheese quality. What makes the difference is a) the
               | animals' diet (which imparts flavors that don't go away
               | with pasteurization), b) the manufacturing process
               | (anything made in a factory will be bland, even if it's
               | made with raw milk) and c) the aging.
               | 
               | The most important factor by far is aging. There's a
               | reason why the French have a special name for the special
               | job of aging cheese, "affineur". A good affinage can
               | transform the most mediocre cheese into a culinary tour
               | de force.
               | 
               | Source: I make cheese and age it myself.
        
         | caycep wrote:
         | and yet despite his alarm at aging ducks the author also has
         | multiple articles on fermented foods on his site...
        
           | thaumasiotes wrote:
           | Fermentation specifically sterilizes the food. That's what
           | alcohol does.
           | 
           | It's analogous to the process of cooking the duck, not the
           | process of hanging it out overnight.
        
             | justincormack wrote:
             | Its not related to alcohol. Fermentation is mainly about
             | producing acidity that stops harmful bacteria growing (also
             | in the absence of oxygen, plus salted).
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | kornhole wrote:
         | American education is that everything needs to be sterilized,
         | irradiated, and wrapped in plastic. However it does not seem to
         | matter how the food was created with growth hormones,
         | antibiotics, preservatives, and other questionable ingredients.
         | 
         | Some of this might be due to the influence of big ag on our
         | education, media and regulatory systems. These measures
         | definitely benefit the big factories and impose excessive
         | burdens on the small local farms.
        
         | Gordonjcp wrote:
         | Americans seem a bit weird about food safety, but also American
         | food seems incredibly unsafe.
         | 
         | I remember an American colleague of mine absolutely freaking
         | out that I was slicing up chicken without wearing gloves, and
         | he was convinced that I'd be dead by morning from some hideous
         | chicken-borne disease because of it. Apparently chicken in the
         | US really is that dangerous, or something, but I guess someone
         | from the US can comment?
        
           | taylodl wrote:
           | Industrial-processed chicken really is that dangerous. It's
           | the de-feathering. They place the bird in vat of boiling
           | water. It loosens the stool so the bird isn't really de-
           | feathered in boiling _water_ , it's de-feathered in boiling
           | _chicken shit water._ Believe it or not this process works so
           | long as you take precautions in how you handle the meat to
           | prevent that bacteria from growing.
           | 
           | Having said that, I don't know of anyone who uses gloves when
           | handling chicken. Just wash your hands and you'll be fine.
           | Then again, this person may have known someone who died from
           | a staph infection. As long as you're not handling raw chicken
           | while having an open cut on your hands or fingers (gross!)
           | then you should be fine. Still, wash up when you're done!
        
             | ponow wrote:
             | Umm, it's _boiling_ water, not luke warm water. You can
             | boil still pond scum and then drink it. Please floss after.
        
               | bitcurious wrote:
               | Let's say you have a big pot of boiling water and you put
               | a raw chicken in there. What temperature is the water
               | now? What if at the end of this process, your goal is to
               | have a raw chicken?
        
               | ponow wrote:
               | But the nasty water itself, which was claimed to be the
               | source of the problem, is not. It's the rawness of the
               | insides of the meat.
        
           | msla wrote:
           | > I remember an American colleague of mine absolutely
           | freaking out that I was slicing up chicken without wearing
           | gloves, and he was convinced that I'd be dead by morning from
           | some hideous chicken-borne disease because of it.
           | 
           | Most Americans aren't like that person.
           | 
           | > Apparently chicken in the US really is that dangerous
           | 
           | Not to my knowledge. On the other (ungloved) hand, I don't
           | know of any culinary tradition involving eating raw chicken.
        
           | Sunspark wrote:
           | I understand that American chicken is not processed under
           | sanitary conditions which is why it needs to be chlorine
           | dipped to kill the salmonella bacteria.
           | 
           | This was one of the big controversies about Brexit, that they
           | would be receiving chlorinated chicken from America when
           | previously they were able to enjoy non-chlorinated chicken.
           | 
           | That said, even with salmonella bacteria, just wash your
           | hands after preparing it and you'll be fine.
        
           | zdragnar wrote:
           | I've never seen anyone wear gloves to cut chicken that wasn't
           | working in a commercial kitchen where they required it.
           | 
           | I've been cooking in America for decades and have never once
           | had an issue with cooking chicken and not wearing gloves. My
           | mother, other the other hand, got an eye infection the day
           | after getting a bit of raw liquid in her eye while she was
           | cutting chicken a few months ago. A few antibiotics and eye
           | drops, and it cleared up.
           | 
           | The only absurd precaution I've seen someone take in the US
           | is that my grandmother would overcook pork to the point we
           | would joke that it would shatter if you dropped it- however,
           | she grew up in times when trichinosis was a very valid
           | concern. Nowadays, it is safe to cook less than well done
           | (some prefer medium or mid-well) though I don't know anyone
           | willing to try it.
        
             | banannaise wrote:
             | Medium-rare pork (cooked to 145F instead of 165) is really
             | tasty. I've been cooking it that way for a few years now.
        
           | jjtheblunt wrote:
           | american here, and that seems as weird to me as it does to
           | you
        
             | Gordonjcp wrote:
             | Good to hear. He was a bit of a weird guy, but this seemed
             | like a really deep-seated "everyone knows that..." thing.
        
           | TheAlchemist wrote:
           | I was amazed in the US grocery shops - plenty of warning
           | signs about how eggs are dangerous if not cooked properly
           | etc.
           | 
           | Funny thing is that all those signs were next to actually
           | healthy food ! Nothing next to the massively processed food
           | that make up 90% of the shop.
        
             | zdragnar wrote:
             | That's because federal regulations in the US require that
             | eggs be washed and refrigerated prior to selling at grocery
             | stores. On the one hand, this decreases the risk that the
             | egg will get contaminated if someone cooks an unwashed egg,
             | but it also means that it no longer has the protective
             | coating on the shell that unwashed eggs have.
             | 
             | That said, I don't think there have been egg related deaths
             | since a raw egg eating competition years ago.
        
               | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
               | I remember hearing that the protective coating on
               | unwashed eggs is also where salmonella is most likely to
               | come from as a justification for requiring that the eggs
               | are washed. I don't know how correct that is but it seems
               | to be somewhat commonly believed in the US.
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | I've been making historic cocktails with uncooked US eggs
               | (either whites or yolks) for the winter season, and have
               | yet to get sick. But sample size me and usually with a
               | decent amount of ethanol.
        
               | smegsicle wrote:
               | any recommendations? i do know that whites and soda make
               | for a fun texture
        
           | laurencerowe wrote:
           | Chickens in the US are not vaccinated against salmonella as
           | they are in Europe. https://medium.com/@westwise/why-hasnt-a-
           | vaccine-stopped-sal...
        
           | setr wrote:
           | I'm American born & raised, and know of no Americans who are
           | concerned about gloves while cooking (though you do need to
           | wash anything touching raw meat before moving on). On the
           | other hand, Koreans I've seen seem to almost fetishize the
           | use of plastics for all manner of cooking which I've never
           | understood.
           | 
           | As far as I've seen, all the American sterilization obsession
           | is pushed onto the industry, not in the kitchen itself --
           | e.g. you cannot find anything "dangerous" in most grocery
           | stores / restaurants in the first place. The closest is steak
           | and sashimi
        
           | gernb wrote:
           | Yes, and In Japan you can eat raw chicken at plenty of
           | restaurants
           | 
           | https://www.google.com/search?q=%E9%B3%A5%E5%88%BA%E3%81%97&.
           | ..
           | 
           | it's good.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | _Factbox: Fake olive oil scandal that caused Spain 's worst
         | food poisoning epidemic in 1981_
         | 
         | > * About 100,000 individuals were exposed and clinical disease
         | occurred in 20,000 people, 10,000 of whom were hospitalized,
         | according to Science Direct website. More than 300 victims died
         | and many more were left with chronic disease, Science Direct
         | said.
         | 
         | > * According to the survivors' organisation Seguimos Viviendo
         | more than 5,000 people have died over the years and there are
         | 20,000 surviving victims with poor quality of life and
         | incurable afflictions.
         | 
         | https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fake-olive-oil-scandal-...
         | 
         | edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | banannaise wrote:
         | > I've come to realize Americans are much too paranoid when it
         | comes to food safety
         | 
         | On the contrary, Americans come from a culture where food
         | purveyors will happily kill you for a quick buck. American food
         | safety is highly regulated because the American business model
         | makes that necessary.
        
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