A lot more people are cooking at home right now than ever before, what will restaurants closing and switching to delivery only. Folks are stocking up on essential supplies, filling the pantries with grains, beans, and other items that will last a long time on the shelf. But do they know how to cook any of this stuff? Hard to say.
Not everyone has been taught to cook. Not everyone has the sense to take the plastic off something before putting it in the oven. This is the world we live in.
Someone named Dylan Morrison is trying to educate the populace on food safety and health in the kitchen having worked in the industry for a long time, or so he says. With that experience comes lots of wild stories of customers who don’t seem to know which part of a chicken is the butt.
hi, it’s me, a food service employee! & uhhh… no offense or anything, but i’ve seen how some of you… live? so in case you’ve, just spitballing here, found yourself w/ a pile of quarantine food but haven’t eaten anything but takeout in 25 years: here is some food safety info.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
as a show of good faith on the customer stories: i work in the prepared foods section of a high-end grocery chain, and i once had a customer deadass ask me “is the salmon grass fed??” i’ll let you sit with that one.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
He offered to share some of his wildest stories if folks would read through this advice on how to know if you’re about to give yourself food poisoning during an epidemic. It’s honestly worth the read even without that promise, but I’ve included the juicy stories,too:
Naturally, wash your hands is point one:
obviously: wash you goddamn hands. wash them before you cook anything, wash them after you touch raw meat or seafood or eggs, wash them before you eat. wash them even if you think “oh this is probably overkill.” wash your hands!!!!
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
Then, get familiar with what temperatures are safe for cooking what and what can sit out for how long:
if thawing something from frozen the safest method is to transfer it right to the fridge and let it thaw gently overnight (or longer, depending on how big it is). if you need it fast: put it, sealed up in its packaging, in a bowl under running COLD water until it thaws.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
you technically have about four hours in which fridge foods/hot foods can sit out at room temp, but that’s cumulative and includes like. the prep time before they’re cooked and shit, so. if it’s been sitting out more than two hours, don’t… eat that
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
once cooked, food needs to COOL and GO IN THE FRIDGE. you want to cool it quickly to limit time in the BACTERIAL HOT ZONE. divide it into smaller containers (it’ll cool faster) and put it in the fridge uncovered until it’s cool. then you can recombine it and pop a lid on it.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
when you reheat an already cooked food or hold it hot it needs to be between 135 degrees and 180 degrees. over 180 will torch it, under 135 and you’re in the BACTERIAL HOT ZONE, where bacteria multiples rapidly and turns your food into poison! poison’s bad, folks.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
giving it its own tweet so it really sticks: THE BACTERIAL HOT ZONE FOR FOOD IS BETWEEN 41 AND 135 DEGREES. this encompasses the temperature of most rooms, hence the tweet about letting food hang out at room temp too long. don’t do it! don’t get food poisoning.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
once cooked most foods are fine to eat for about 5 days (give seafood 3). if you can, take a tip from professional kitchens everywhere and buy some masking tape and a sharpie. write both the date it was made and the date it goes bad on the tape and slap it on the container.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
But how can you really tell when things go off? Even if you’ve dated the item and think it’s in the right time frame for consumption, there are ways to check:
something to buy right now if you don’t have it: a good food thermometer, ideally instant read, the thermopop (linked) is great but you can get one for like $12 on amazon and that’s typically fine too https://t.co/FkSHh3UXXi
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
periodically test your thermometer, bc if it’s off and it says 165 when something is actually 92 you’re in trouble. to do this: get a glass of ice water. let it sit for a minute, then temp it. the thermometer should read 32 (a degree or two of accuracy on either side is okay).
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
Remember that canned stuff can also be bad to eat if it’s been dented or otherwise messed up:
maybe you bought kidney beans! if they’re in a can, great, they’re already safe. if you bought them dry: THEY ARE POISONOUS, you need to soak them overnight AND boil them for at least ten minutes to make them… not be poisonous.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
if you’ve got a canned food and the can has a small dent in it, whatever, who among us isn’t a little dented these days. if it has a large dent it, or a dent on a seam, or is rusted, that food in there is chock full of bacteria! don’t eat that.
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
“but dylan i eat things past the expiration date and/or violate other food safety rules all the time and i’m fine” bully for you!! but this is not the time to be fucking around or taking your chances with that shit. the 👏 hospitals 👏 will 👏 be 👏 occupied 👏
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
That’s a lot of info and much of it was unpleasant because it might mean changing cooking and eating habits. Well, everything else is changing, so why not make BETTER habits!
And as your reward, here are those wild stories:
the customer who ordered a thanksgiving meal from me, came and picked it up the day before thanksgiving, then called me on thanksgiving day and screamed at me because the food wasn’t hot when she removed it from her own refrigerator
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
the customer who comes in to get black forest ham, but insists her children are allergic to the coating on the ham, but not to the ham inside, which is identical to our other ham, which she won’t buy. so once a week we ruin a black forest ham by cutting off the coating w/ a knife
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
the customer who made me remove all the bones from a hot rotisserie chicken, also with my hands, and then wanted a discount because she wasn’t getting the bones
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
this fuckin’ guy https://t.co/VWcJcFnqhD
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 13, 2020
Plus one more update on ground beef:
oh my ACTUAL GOD apparently ground beef IS in fact 165 and all OTHER beef is 145 and the moral of this story is that it turns out i hate beef. i am as surprised as anyone. STAY SAFE OUT THERE, TAKE YE BEEF CHANCES AS YE MAY
— dylan morrison 🍓 (@dylan_thyme) March 14, 2020
Thank you for your service, sir.