Horrific habits from excellent cooks

[SylviaLovegren]

I shudder when I see people feed their animals from their eating utensils or kiss their pets on the muzzle, give them a scratch behind the ears and then turn back to the stove. Yuck.

When I was a kid I was driving with my parents in the back woods of Idaho and we got invited to lunch by some very nice local folks. The woman made fresh biscuits and after she rolled them out on her cutting board she called the dog over to lick the board clean. I remember the look of horror on my mom's face but, oddly enough, don't remember whether we ate the biscuits or not.

[nolnacs]

When I was a kid I was driving with my parents in the back woods of Idaho and we got invited to lunch by some very nice local folks. The woman made fresh biscuits and after she rolled them out on her cutting board she called the dog over to lick the board clean. I remember the look of horror on my mom's face but, oddly enough, don't remember whether we ate the biscuits or not.

Did she wash the cutting board afterwards?

[Broken English]

I wasn't talking about viruses. I was talking about the casual attitude that it's okay to use sloppy hygiene. Cross contamination anyone? How's about a little salmonella?

Yeah, for sure.

I was referring more to the plethora of people who think that tasting from the same spoon is a culinary crime worthy of prison.

[SylviaLovegren]

When I was a kid I was driving with my parents in the back woods of Idaho and we got invited to lunch by some very nice local folks. The woman made fresh biscuits and after she rolled them out on her cutting board she called the dog over to lick the board clean. I remember the look of horror on my mom's face but, oddly enough, don't remember whether we ate the biscuits or not.

Did she wash the cutting board afterwards?

No, the dog licking the board clean was the "washing".

[gfweb]

I wasn't talking about viruses. I was talking about the casual attitude that it's okay to use sloppy hygiene. Cross contamination anyone? How's about a little salmonella?

Yeah, for sure.

I was referring more to the plethora of people who think that tasting from the same spoon is a culinary crime worthy of prison.

The prisons are too crowded, but it is a bad habit born of ignorance or indifference.

[Septemberdog61]

Anyone who wears rings and bracelets while cooking, sooooo skeevy. I saw a video of someone making hamburger with a ring on his thumb and I wanted to vomit.

I think you've covered pretty much everyone on the Food Network. Bling and cooking just do not go together. It's gross and the metal gets so hot especially if you're on a grill or flat top. I get grossed out when I see long painted fingernails on cooks or dirty, bitten and un-manicured nails (ala Iron Chef Bobby Flay). Seriously, his fingernails skeeve me out.

[Kouign Aman]

While I would prefer cooks not dip their tasting spoon into the product after its been used once, its the rare family cook who is carrying anything so nasty that it will make the rest of the family sick from eating the food. And if its one meal being cooked, odds are small that the donated bacteria would have time to grow into spoilage. Airborne molds would probably do the trick first.

Typhoid Mary was real, and an excellent example of why good food hygeine is important, but if you kiss your mom, or share a bite off her plate, you arent getting anything worse if she tasted the food with the same spoon twice. Circumstances do matter.

If I had to choose, I'd rather have dog-licked biscuit board than cat-feet on counter. Now to hope I never have to choose.

[Arey]

My mother spent the last ten years of her life living with me. She would frequently caution me against picking any parsley from the front row of parsley in my herb bed since as she put it, that was where my Boston Terrier Brian "wee-wee-ed"

After both my Bostons had passed away, and I'd gotten a Burmese Cat (closest thing to a Boston I could find that used a litter box), my mother would would feed Chips on the kitchen counters, and no matter how often I would point out to her that Chips' standard route was - into the utility room - use his litter box - out of the utility room and into the kitchen and - up onto the kitchen counter to see what goodies my mother had for him, she would not stop feeding him on the counter. No matter how often I pointed out to her that after using his litter box, he didn't wipe his feet, she persisted in feeding him on the counters.

Chips and Mother are long gone, and my current cat, while still a kitten, learned that cats found on kitchen counters had better stay out of sight for the remainder of the day.

Actually my mother was not an excellent cook, she wasn't even a good cook, but with the exception of Chips, she was a tiger for hygiene in the kitchen.

[baroness]

If I had to choose, I'd rather have dog-licked biscuit board than cat-feet on counter. Now to hope I never have to choose.

I wouldn't want to choose, either - but food comes into direct contact with cutting boards (not counters).

[Kouign Aman]

Yeah, but studies have been done on what's under cat claws vs whats in dog's mouths. I'll take dog spit any day.

Plus, studies have been done on what wooden cutting boards do to bacteria. Results surprised the heck out of everyone, at the time.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Kouign Aman (log)

[andiesenji]

I have never been able to tolerate pets on eating tables or counters. At one time back in the late 60s, early 70s I had great danes and they were fenced off from the kitchen because they could not be trusted to keep their faces off the counters.

I've had basenjis for forty years and have had some that would jump up on the kitchen counters and "shop" for goodies but a mousetrap under a few sheets of newspaper soon discouraged these explorations with some recurrent teaching sessions for backsliders.

Any time this happened I would clean all surfaces and disinfect them thoroughly. Basenjis are extremely clean dogs but I don't want anything that touches the floor on any area where I prepare food.

During the years that my kitchen was "certified" for commercial catering use, there was an "airlock" set of double doors between the rest of the house and the kitchen just to make sure the dogs could not invade.

I won't eat in a house where cats are given free roaming access. For one thing, I am allergic and for another I don't consider cat hair a condiment!

Not long ago I was watching one of the food shows, possibly on PBS, and a stockpot that had been setting on the floor was placed on a counter and after the contents had been transferred out, some fruits and vegetables were spread out on the same surface and I saw no cleaning between the removal of the pot and the placement of the other foods.

This made me cringe.

A month or so ago I went to a barbecue at the home of friends. One of their friends was manning the grill and when one of his kids ran up to him, he bopped him on the head with the tongs and went right back to using them on the food on the grill. This guy is an MD and should know better. Things like that to me are gross.

Edited August 9, 2011 by andiesenji (log)

[Kouign Aman]

Hair in food is definitely unpleasant (and the smell of burning hair likewise), but what medical condition do you suppose could be transferred in such a fashion?

[gfweb]

Staph

[Kouign Aman]

??? 'splain, pls.

[gfweb]

Staph aureus is carried on the skin and mouth of a percentage of people. About 30 % which isn't trivial.

Hair can carry that staph to food. If not refrigerated properly it could multiply to the point where food poisoning is possible.

Not to say it will happen but it might.

I understand the fatigue that people have with sanitary rules but they are there for a reason.

You want your doc to wash his hands right?

[Country]

Plus, studies have been done on what wooden cutting boards do to bacteria. Results surprised the heck out of everyone, at the time.

What were the results? I've used wood boards for 50 years with no problems....

[ScoopKW]

The results were: Wood boards are safer. When plastic boards get scratched up, the gouges harbor bacteria. When wood boards get scratched up, acids in the wood are better at killing germs. (Better, not "100% effective" is the important thing to take away, here.) Two clean, unscratched boards? Toss-up. Moral, replace (or sand, in the case of wood) your cutting boards when they're full of gouges.

http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

[Kouign Aman]

Deary me, then dont shake the good dr's son's hands either. Or ruffle his hair, if he's little.

I'm not against food hygeine. I am discussing relative risks of food prepared for

close family members, for immediate consumption, vs food prepared by/for strangers in vast quantities that might sit around a while.

Its the same sort of reason the bus driver has more stringent driver's license requirements than the soccer parent.

[gfweb]

I see your point, but good habits are good habits. What is lost by doing it right?

[Kouign Aman]

Nothing is.

Just adding some perspective re relative risks.

[ScoopKW]

Re: Perspective

Aside from time I spent living in the third world, I'd say I've been on the receiving end of low-grade food illness more from eating at other people's houses than I have from eating at restaurants.

So, I think they should make this a mandatory two-or-three day class in middle school and again in high school.

Too many people simply don't know what they're doing is dangerous.

[annabelle]

I don't eat at potlucks just for that reason.

[gfweb]

Me too. I only eat from trusted kitchens. Not many of them.

[Kouign Aman]

"Other people's houses" is not equal to "your family".

I'd love to see Home Ec become a required HS course again - how to shop, cook, balance a checkbook, sew on a button, maintain a car, change a lightbulb, shut off a water valve, etc.

In there would be how to keep yourself and others healthy when you cook for them.

Food left standing hours at bacterial repro temperatures can make people very miserable afterward.

Anyway, my comments resulted in unintentional hijack, so I'm done here.

Back to the originally scheduled discussion of horrific habits of excellent cooks.

[maggiethecat]

I'm horrified by brining fanaticism -- brining done right is good, brining done wrong ruins food. A cookout I attended this weekend, at the home of cooking enthusiast buddies, was a horrible example: half inch pork chops left to brine for 24 hours = mushy, salty, inedible. It was a damn shame.