Today in class we discussed sanitation and safety. Chef did a review of this chapter to make sure that anything she spoke about in class today, that we should be aware that it will be on our first test Monday.
Never again will you look at a food product in the same way. Chef had many stories to tell about sanitation when it comes to the foods we eat. She spoke about the time she at an early age worked at a farm picking produce. As you can expect, the facilities for farm workers is almost non-exist. Chef would wait until lunch time when she would call her parents to come pick her up so that she could make a visit to the washroom. When you're on a farm as such, they may have a port-a-potty or an outhouse but not any running water to wash your hands... ewww! So needless to say, with all the fingers that have touched our produce, you will want to make sure that you give it a good wash before you take a bite into it.
If you haven't gone through the experience of becoming in a cook/chef in a qualified educational institution, you may never know about sanitation and safety the way we have learned about today. All food items reach the middle man in pretty much the same way. In carts, boxes, etc. These carts, boxes, etc. are sitting on grimy trucks, dirty floors in storage areas, etc. before we even get our hands on them. There are plenty of germs being picked up from the bottoms of these containers that are possibly being transferred to the foods that we eat ~ food that we don't necessarily cook before ingesting. Remember... Don't forget to wash those melons before you cut into them. Your knife will transfer harmful organisms from the rind's exterior (which was in contact with soil) to the flesh of the fruit.
Meat, poultry, fish, and egg products basically travel to you along the same route too. With these products we generally have to cook them first before eating thus killing any bacteria that may be lying in wait. Don't leave food (cooked or raw) out for more than four hours. The four hours includes the time that you get it from the grocery to your home and in to the refrigerator or on to the dinner table. The danger zone for food is between 40 degrees F and 140 degrees F. The time may be less depending on the weather. For example if it's a very hot day in or out of the kitchen you will have to give foods less than the four hours mentioned above. Keep frozen foods at zero degrees F or lower.
Minimum internal cooking temperatures should be referred to when cooking meats. A table for these temperatures can be found at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (scroll down 3/4 of the page). When testing the temperature, check in two to three different areas making sure that you check in areas that are the thickest part of the meat.
The most import lesson from this for me is that food safety practices are a must no matter where you cook ~ at home or for a business. You will never look at your kitchen space, or place that serves food in the same way. Check out the bathrooms when eating out, if the bathroom is clean then you can expect that the kitchen is treated the same way. Well in most cases.
Chef couldn't find the DVD Food Inc. so we will have to watch it tomorrow. Instead, we had the option of working on our projects, looking through her cookbooks and previous student's projects. I decided to look through a few of her books. Chef gave me a food styling book to have a look at because I mentioned an interest in that area. Very cool stuff and it all looks like great fun working with food (or not) to make it look good for print or television. Depending on how my plating skills go this could be a career for me. Who knew that they used a raw chicken to show a lovely plump cooked chicken. I always wondered why my chickens never looked like that when they got out of the oven.
We also took a little trip to Hamilton's Central Library. Wow, it's quite the library. If you're from Toronto, I'd say it's comparable to their Central Library. I was really impressed and was even more impressed when I could use my Burlington Library card to take out some books ~ baking books!
Tonight's homework is to read chapter three ~ Tools and Equipment and chapter four ~ Basic Principles of Cooking and Food Science.
Tonight's dinner is pan seared pork chops with thyme served with white jasmine rice and broiled asparagus.
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