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Re:The Peking Duck Exception by ioblomov on Monday December 05, 2022 @12:37PM (#33868796)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by Mikeb85 on Monday December 05, 2022 @12:59PM (#33869115)
Raw milk cheese is safe after a certain age since the good bacteria eliminate the bad bacteria.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by jacobr1 on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:43PM (#33870783)
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.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by Mikeb85 on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:59PM (#33871013)
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.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by cheeze_whizz on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:19PM (#33872075)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by woleium on Friday December 09, 2022 @11:39PM (#33929909)
The pasteurization process itself is much less impactful on taste now than it used to be.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by cheeze_whizz on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:13PM (#33872014)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by Gordonjcp on Monday December 05, 2022 @01:50PM (#33869968)
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?

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by zdragnar on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:31PM (#33870632)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by banannaise on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:45PM (#33870829)
Medium-rare pork (cooked to 145F instead of 165) is really tasty. I've been cooking it that way for a few years now.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by jamiek88 on Monday December 05, 2022 @07:24PM (#33874073)
> some prefer medium or mid-well) though I don't know anyone willing to try it

Fairly common in Texas.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by taylodl on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:31PM (#33870618)
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!

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by ponow on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:08PM (#33871146)
Umm, it's boiling water, not luke warm water. You can boil still pond scum and then drink it. Please floss after.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by bitcurious on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:42PM (#33871631)
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?
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by ponow on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:05PM (#33871914)
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.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by setr on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:27PM (#33870565)
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

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by TheAlchemist on Monday December 05, 2022 @01:59PM (#33870147)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by zdragnar on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:34PM (#33870663)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:06PM (#33871114)
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.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by ethbr0 on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:11PM (#33871194)
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.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by smegsicle on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:43PM (#33872313)
any recommendations? i do know that whites and soda make for a fun texture
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by ethbr0 on Monday December 05, 2022 @06:19PM (#33873365)
If you can get ahold of pisco, a pisco sour (Peruvian) is a fun classic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisco_Sour

And generally, most of the sour family, and their descendents the fizzes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_(cocktail)

Egg whites add a nice... balance and mouthfeel to the cocktail that you don't really get from other ingredients.

For the yolks, flips are the big family (think nog without cream). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_(cocktail)

You can also save the yolks and make zabaione without being wasteful. Heavenly decadent on fresh fruit and easy to whip up after dinner. Also a great wow if you've got leftover champagne, as the carbonation isn't particularly important. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabaione

I usually split an egg and store the unused portion (whites or yolks) in the fridge 24 hours and use them the next day.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by overgrownzygote on Monday December 05, 2022 @07:56PM (#33874342)
My personal favorite egg white cocktail is the Clover Club, which hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by fortedoesnthack on Monday December 05, 2022 @11:51PM (#33876062)
I looked this up before since I was curious if this actually did anything, and apparently the US _does_ have a lower incidence of food poisoning compared to many countries, so perhaps some of these preventative measures taken in the US do help.

I guess it also helps there is a cultural aversion to eating raw food compared to the Europe and Asia.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by wink on Tuesday December 06, 2022 @04:36AM (#33877524)
Unironically, with their health care system couldn't it also be underreporting and not seeing a doctor if you have a mild case of food poisoning where someone in Europe would just go see a doctor?
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by laurencerowe on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:26PM (#33870561)
Chickens in the US are not vaccinated against salmonella as they are in Europe. https://medium.com/@westwise/why-hasnt-a-vaccine-stopped-sal...
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by msla on Monday December 05, 2022 @01:57PM (#33870107)
> 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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by jjtheblunt on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:51PM (#33870899)
american here, and that seems as weird to me as it does to you
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by Gordonjcp on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:04PM (#33871090)
Good to hear. He was a bit of a weird guy, but this seemed like a really deep-seated "everyone knows that..." thing.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by jjtheblunt on Monday December 05, 2022 @06:10PM (#33873263)
yeah, the good old small sample set randomness!
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by Sunspark on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:07PM (#33871138)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by gernb on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:47PM (#33872368)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by rtpg on Monday December 05, 2022 @06:09PM (#33873252)
It’s also totally measurably getting people sick and (as one researcher put it) “not magically safe” [0]

[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/benschrager/status/14256753783711...

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by gernb on Monday December 05, 2022 @11:10PM (#33875814)
I never said it was magically safe

Other common raw meats include sushi, poke, sashimi, steak tartar, yukhoe (double whammy, raw beef + raw egg)

the #1 source of food poisoning is the norovirus via bad veggies by a literal order of magnitude over anything else. Guess I'd better stop eating salad and putting uncooked veggies in my sandwich

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by rtpg on Tuesday December 06, 2022 @09:15PM (#33889931)
Sorry, I just really like the wording and wanted to make sure that people don't read that and think that there's some magic going on (like the "real" magic that goes on with eggs that make raw eggs safer to eat in some countries)

To your point about uncooked vegetables... the fact that that is what is left standing is a testament to us cooking meat and practicing proper food safety! I'm sure that stat would change quite quickly if people were having chicken sashimi more often.

Disclaimer: I eat sashimi quite often (steak tartar... sometimes. There are definitely restaurants I trust less to do that safely). Just also think it's important to conceptualize the size of the dice roll for various foods.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by fomine3 on Monday December 05, 2022 @07:24PM (#33874071)
Most of these restaurants are just stupid. Food poisoning is happend more in restaurants than home.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by PolygonSheep on Monday December 05, 2022 @11:03PM (#33875774)
American born and raised here: I always ensure I wash my hands thoroughly after handling raw chicken but I've never worn gloves or ever seen anyone doing it to cut chicken at home.

I have seen it in restaurants but that's more to keep the food from being contaminated by hands, not the other way around.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by pessimizer on Monday December 05, 2022 @01:51PM (#33870001)
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

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by routerl on Monday December 05, 2022 @07:10PM (#33873917)
You're talking about counterfeit oil... By definition, it didn't follow Spanish food safety laws.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by kornhole on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:03PM (#33870222)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by rtpg on Monday December 05, 2022 @06:03PM (#33873192)
People like saying this kind of stuff to imply that, like, steak tartar is safe.

The fact of the matter is that yes, all things being equal, things like actually cooking food or not leaving things out at ambient temperature make it safer to eat.

The problem with food science is that you can have terrible food hygiene and still survive for a long time! This sort of stuff doesn’t instantly kill you

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by shalmanese on Monday December 05, 2022 @07:19PM (#33874006)
Ironically, irradiation is largely illegal in the US whereas it's routinely performed in the EU.
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by banannaise on Monday December 05, 2022 @02:44PM (#33870806)
> 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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by caycep on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:11PM (#33871190)
and yet despite his alarm at aging ducks the author also has multiple articles on fermented foods on his site...
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by thaumasiotes on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:39PM (#33871581)
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.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by justincormack on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:46PM (#33871679)
Its not related to alcohol. Fermentation is mainly about producing acidity that stops harmful bacteria growing (also in the absence of oxygen, plus salted).
Re:The Peking Duck Exception by jiggawatts on Monday December 05, 2022 @06:13PM (#33873308)
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2019/05/listeria-deaths-in-fr...

"I survived, so it must be safe" is not a good argument.

Re:The Peking Duck Exception by Georgelemental on Monday December 05, 2022 @09:59PM (#33875346)
I'll accept the very small risk, life without fromage is not life worth living. And every food has risks