Cooking Burns and Scars

[chefdg]

My short 10 years experience in professional kitchens and the worse burn I have ever gotten was from a steamer. I reached in (with a towel) to grab a pan, thumb on top. As the steam rolled out of the steamer over the pan, my thumb knuckle was torched!!! I still grimmace when I think about it.

[Naomi]

Thanks for sharing yer pain, man. I worked a pizza oven for a couple of years in college, and the arm burns were a badge.

Me too. I was 16 at the time. My arms were striped with burns. Since I was a moody kinda teenager, a teacher once asked me if I was self-injuring!

[Chef Shogun]

To: Everybody

Re: Burn stories

Ow ow ow ow.....cringe. Eww....

Sincerely,

C.S.

[JPW]

My burn was caused by pulling a big restaurant tray with 6 loaves of bread out of the convection oven. One hand with a towel on the edge, just slide it out of the oven so your other hand with a towel is under the center. Turn to island and slide off. Easy until someone distracts you. Result = searing pain as edge of tray hits forearm.

Problem is OPEN kitchen. With great patience, slowly put tray down correctly. Stroll into closed part of kitchen. SPRINT into walk-in, close door, grab coldest thing on hand, apply to wound, commence screaming at top of lungs.

The 1 inch long equal sign (=) scar finally faded out of sight about 2 years ago (a good 10 years after the incident).

[KateW]

Yep, steam is the worst, followed by most liquids because you can't just pull your hand away--it's still covered with the offending substance.

I have sensitive skin and while none of my burns were that bad, you can still see the evidence. There's this awesome gel stuff at work that looks and smells nasty but works wonders for pain, if not appearance.

[MicBacchus]

Just recently - burn on right forearm from making an omelette at 5 AM! Years ago, (before we were married), my husband had a portable deep fryer explode on him, burning his upper body. He was a topic of discussion during morning rounds since all that was left was muscle and bone. Unbelievably, he has just a little scar tissue and all hair regrew, but if you look carefully you'll see some skin on his arms is lighter. Needless to say, deep frying is very seldom done in our house.

[Hest88]

I'm not a restaurant professional, but the worst burn I ever got was in college.

I was cooking something called a skillet moussaka for my roommate. I heated the oil in the wok, and very stupidly slid the entire mound of ground beef in the wok. Splash! Oil all across both forearms. Of course, stupid me, I thought there was no way I could stop and ruin my dish, so I grabbed bags of frozen blueberries from the freezer to alternate on my forearms while cooking the meat. Soon I had blueberry juice running down my arms as well, so I was a rather macabre sight.

To this day I have a few dark spots on both forearms that are my badges of honor from the infamous skillet moussaka incident.

[NulloModo]

I am not a restaurant professional either, however:

I gave myself a rather nasty burn on my left calf when in the process of heating up a weber kettle to sear some steaks, I removed the lid (to place the steaks on) but instead of setting it on the ground, tried to hold it while getting the steaks on with the other hand. NEedless to say I brushed the superheated metal against my leg and pulled away a layer of skin with it. Ouch.

[Samhill]

Chicks dig scars.

[fiftydollars]

...pulled the sheet tray out of the oven with a slightly damp towel...

Beware the damp towel!

I was pulling a cast-iron pan out of a 600 degree oven when I learned this lesson. It took a few seconds, after I had firmly grasped the pan and closed the oven door, for the steam to start cooking the flesh on my left hand. For safety reasons I resisted my impulse to drop the damned thing and it seemed like it took forever to set the thing on the stovetop.

Luckily, once the blisters had healed, the incident did not result in a residual disability and I learned a very valuable lesson.

Beware the damo towel!

[chromedome]

I'm at the oven all day, every day. Frequently I don't even notice that I've burned myself until I go to wash my hands. Then the hot water reminds me!

I've had a few good ones, over the years. Like the time I pulled the stock pot off to the side of the burner, because it was too hot (boiling, not simmering). Having adjusted the flame, I reached up and pulled the pot back onto the grate...using the handle that'd been over the flame. Matching blisters, finger and thumb.

Then there was the heating-my-sugar-to-start-work-on-my-centrepiece incident, which saw a large bubble of lava explode over my right hand. The blisters lasted a few weeks, but (bloody-minded sort that I am) I bandaged and gloved myself and proceeded to pull the damned sugar. In my defence, let me say that I iced my hand every ten minutes for the rest of my lab time that day.

And at school, of course, there were always people who were "too busy" to stack things properly on the cart we used for hauling our stuff to the dish pit. So periodically one of us would have to go and organize things. I always seemed to be the one who organized sheets straight from the oven, or saute pans straight from the stove.

That loud sizzling sound is classic comedy, every time.

[Tracy K.]

I have a line of scars on my left arm: two about two cm apart mid-forearm; one at the wrist/thumb joint; one in the web between thumb and forefinger. The oldest is about two years old, the others are fairly new. Also had a knuckle-topper

on the right hand. I tend to get these scars when my mind is preoccupied.

I purchased two nomex guards that snap on the rack from King Arthur/Baker's Catalog. When you're trying to look sexy (at least for women) cooking scars just don't make it.

[Chef Shogun]

Was he putting one over on me?  The old "tell the extern to go get me a bucket of steam" trick?

Left-handed smoke shifter?

[TheFuzzy]

Folks,

For a while I was a professional baker in the morning (3am to 11am) and a potter in the afternoon. You could pretty much count on me having an average of 2 first- and 1 second-degree burn, any day of the week.

Actually, all bakers I've known have a series of thin burn scars across their inner arms, perpendicular to the arm. These are "tray burns" from mis-balancing hot full-sheet pans as they come out of the baking oven. Then there's the smaller ones, on the back of the hand, that come from not being fast enough with the baker's paddle and catching the back of your hand on the edge of the oven as the rotating racks push the end of the paddle up.

One of the worst burns for my fellow bakers was from what we called "baker's napalm": the caramelized liquid sugar that you had to scrape out of the sticky-bun trays. And you had to scrape it out hot; if you let it cool, you'd be scrubbing that pan for an hour to get it clean. The little blobs of sugar would drip or flick on your skin, and most bakers couldn't scrape the burning sugar off without losing the skin too.

Fortunately for me, I'm naturally resistant to burns and heal without scarring. Most of the time.

One really bad experience is when I fumbled at pie coming out of the oven and caught it with my bare left hand. Oops.

However, none of the bakery burns even came close to the burns from ceramics. Once I got an "instant" 3rd-degree burn when the sleeve of my asbestos jacket tore off while doing Cone 07 Raku (which means you pull orange-hot pots out of the kiln). I had that scar for 6 years before it faded.

[Chris Amirault]

Yep, steam is the worst, followed by most liquids because you can't just pull your hand away--it's still covered with the offending substance.

A quick reference to the temperatures reached by certain substances (boiling water, sugar syrup, hot oil), coupled with the non-evaporating, skin-sticking qualities of caramel, roux, etc. would argue otherwise. And having had numerous steam burns ("lessee... are those steamed scallops ready yet? I'll just lower my hand into this roiling steam basket and poke around...") and one Prudhomme-sized roux burn, I'm here to tell you that the roux is far, far worse.

Why I'm making a case for roux being the worst burn at 3:34 am is beyond me, however.

[Chris Amirault]

When you're trying to look sexy (at least for women) cooking scars just don't make it.

Entirely depends on who's on the make, Tracy!

[CheGuevara]

This is from the same place I worked at from a post on another thread. I don't think these burns were very honorable : )

now i see your point - and very clearly indeed. this would not fall under the "honorable" category...it makes quite a good story for bystanders though!

-che

[FaustianBargain]

You are a professional...burns means that you are either not paying attention or that you are sloppy...having said that, it cant be avoided in the kitchen...been there, done that...got the Mark...if it will make you feel better, you can call it a 'badge of honour'...

[CheGuevara]

Lalitha - i'm saved then, i'm not a professional

[TJHarris]

Was he putting one over on me?  The old "tell the extern to go get me a bucket of steam" trick?

Left-handed smoke shifter?

I will see your left-handed smoke shifter and raise you a bacon stretcher and quart of white food coloring.

[KateW]

Yep, steam is the worst, followed by most liquids because you can't just pull your hand away--it's still covered with the offending substance.

A quick reference to the temperatures reached by certain substances (boiling water, sugar syrup, hot oil), coupled with the non-evaporating, skin-sticking qualities of caramel, roux, etc. would argue otherwise. And having had numerous steam burns ("lessee... are those steamed scallops ready yet? I'll just lower my hand into this roiling steam basket and poke around...") and one Prudhomme-sized roux burn, I'm here to tell you that the roux is far, far worse.

Why I'm making a case for roux being the worst burn at 3:34 am is beyond me, however.

Ok, ok, I didn't mean scientifically...just ouch-wise I find steam and liquid to be worse than say, an oven or stovetop burn. Just the other day I was holding a bowl and spooning mashed potatoes into it and glopped some onto my hand...now I'll never forget to just put the bowl down...

[phaelon56]

Mine was about a week or two after I started waiting table. One of my colleagues put the filter in the Bunn coffee maker a bit crooked. It folded over and the grounds made their way to the drainhole of the filter basket, clogging it and leaving an empty coffee pot on the burner with a completely full basket of hot water. I yanked the basket in a one motion to dump thr grounds, ending up with the entire basket of scalding water sloshing out over my right hand and wrist.

Amazingly enough.... despite the intensity of the initial burn, the after-effects were minimal. As the first "fern bar" in town, we had an abundance of plants throughout the restaurant. A wise coworker took a huge aloe leaf from a nearby plant, slit it lengthwise, placed it on the burn and then wrapped a towel around to hold the pultice in place. It works amazingly well. Every restaurant kitchen should have access to a huge aloe plant - seriously.

[hathor]

If we're voting, I'm voting that carmelized sugar hurts worse than roux. You can't peel the sugar off quick enough.

I think the burns are a badge of honor...of sorts. They kinda tell the story of your life...oh, there's the rack of lamb burn, and that's the never try to juice a lime with a knife scar, and that's the time the broiler tray came tumbling out and peeled the skin off.... You know when there is an archeological dig and they analyze what the person must have done during their lifetime, can you imagine someone analyzing all these burns?

And I cannot believe no one posted pictures!!

[Mabelline]

As a certified welder for 22 years, allow me to recommend Bag Balm. You can buy it anywhere, and if you have a really nasty burn, it will heal it in a very short time.

Now, having said that, I was chicken-frying some steaks in a wok one night, zoned out, and splashed the hot oil on the arch of my foot. YEOUCH!!!! Still have that "Medal of Honor" on the top of my right foot. And I have been burned by magnesium--which does not go out---but that HURT!

[winesonoma]

You win for burns "magnesium" I know that stuff.