Okay, this 'cook it safe' campaign is nucking futz.
The "Cook It Safe" campaign encourages cooks of all ages to read and follow all cooking instructions printed on food packages before preparation. To prevent foodborne illness in your home or dorm room, follow the Cook It Safe Taskforce's four basic messages:
- Read and Follow Package Cooking Instructions.
- Know When to Use a Microwave or Conventional Oven.
- Know Your Microwave Wattage before Microwaving Food.
- Always Use a Food Thermometer to Ensure a Safe Internal Temperature
.
Really? Follow the package insructions? Now who woulda thunk that? Of course, Johnny and Janey have to be able to read in the first place in order to follow package cooking instructions.
Know when to use a micorwave or conventional over? You mean the package doesn't say that? Before my microwave broke, I cooked very little meat in the thing, bacon almost exclusively. Fresh veggies in the microwave required a little more research, as well as trial and error. You can kill a veggie to mush too easy in a microwave, although I will say that for cooking eggplant, a microwave is faster than an oven and doesn't ruin the eggplant, the same for precooking potatoes for further cooking. (I haven't had a microwave for years now since mine went tits up and guess what? I don't miss the damn thing.)
Always use a food thermometer? Again, really? You can't tell if something's not hot enough when you bite into it? Also, the only time I use a thermometer in the kitchen is for frying and for large roasts. For smaller cuts, like a steak, I use the 'skin between the thumb and forefinger' doneness test: If, when you push a finger on the meat, and it feels like that part of your hand, it's done. Old school, but a hell of a lot cheaper. (School. There's that word again.)
Living in a college dorm, the only food safety I had to worry about was opening canned meat to put on crackers, cooking popcorn, or heating cans of soup in the bottom of the popcorn popper; no microwaves back in the Pleistocene Age. So basically, we ate in the dining hall at mealtimes and didn't snack a whole hell of a lot in between (which really is the point when it comes to obesity), except for food that went with >>. Besides, we didn't have a fridge for food but for beverages -- and not sugery sodas (except for mixers or setups); when I was in college, the beer age was 18 and the liquor age was 21. (We had some older students in the dorm, Viet Nam Vets, who were good for getting liquor. Our quarterly grain alcohol parties were widely known and respected; we started mixing 'the recipe' on Wednesday for Friday night to make sure the punch was good and cold. Of course, nobody really remembered the party, but that's not the point, or maybe it was. But for us, fridges were for alcohol and related items whch, when you get right down to it, is the only proper use for a fridge in college.)
I blame this whole food safety campaign crap on lack of Home Ec, not too mention that a kid has to be able to read to get the full benefits of cooking, as in following recipes, knowing how much of something something is by weight, and knowing how to follow the instructions for a pan's use and cleanup. I can't tell you how many times I've seen non-stick ruined by metal utensils (which makes me think of the movie
Mommy Dearest, where Joan Crawford's character yells at her daughter, 'NO WIRE HANGERS!'; NO METAL UTENSILS ON A NON-STICK OR CERAMIC GLAZED CAST IRON POT!)
This food safety crap is nanny state stuff. Because the government has raised a village of idiots, the government now has to spend money it doesn't have to further not educate people on what they didn't learn the first go around. What rot.
