Sous vide loco

Bureaucracy gone mad in the land of the free.  The New York Times reports that sous vide cooking has been prohibited by local health and safety authorities.

My brother, Alastair, is a chef and maintains that there is a pervasive myth about pork cookery:

"It is generally held that you should cook pork well done, to deal with the nasties within. Some people will talk about worms and all sorts. The parasite in question that tainted pork and got its reputation is called Trichinella:

Trichinellosis, also called trichinosis, is caused by eating raw or undercooked meat of animals infected with the larvae of a species of worm called Trichinella. Infection occurs commonly in certain wild carnivorous (meat-eating) animals but may also occur in domestic pigs.Trichinellosis, also called trichinosis, is caused by eating raw or undercooked meat of animals infected with the larvae of a species of worm called Trichinella. Infection occurs commonly in certain wild carnivorous (meat-eating) animals but may also occur in domestic pigs. [Centre for Disease Control (US)]

Most common cause of poisoning in US people is by eating bears or cougar jerky and other redneck wierdness. Since farmers have long finished feeding rubbish to their pigs, the rate of incidence in pork is negligible. It still appears in US pork at a very low level. The UK is approaching the EU to be declared a Trichinella free zone, but even Harold McGee suggests the risk is minimal in the US, and cites that Trichinella dies at about 57C. Given that the parasite isn't killed by salting or curing, shouldn't we be avoiding Parma, Iberian, Sereno, Denhay etc?

The British Pig Executive gives the following advice...

MLC recommends that for whole pork cuts and joints,chefs offer customers the choice of their pork cooked rare, medium or well done, just as they would with other red meats as long as the meat has been seared
on the outside to kill any bacteria. 

However rolled joints, sausages, burgers and other processed pork products must be well cooked at their centre to kill off any bacteria that might have found their way there during preparation or manufacture centre of the meat reaches one of the following temperatures for at least the time given:

60°C for 45 mins
65°C for 10 mins
70°C for 2 mins
75°C for 30 secs
80°C for 6 secs

Pork has one benefit of having a very short muscle fabric, so when overcooked, it does actually become tender as the fibres break, but it's not as nice as perfectly denatured protein, still holding it's moistures. Mind you, rare pork is not nice.

A huge majority of chefs seen in the public domain are still recommending cooking this amazing meat well done, thus missing out on the wonders of truly succulent pork, including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who won't suggest a temperature for cooking below 70C in his River Cottage Meat Book, (yet still makes cured air dried hams?). Catch sight if you can though of Gordon Ramsay's beautiful pink-blushed loin roast in his Sunday Lunch book. Tell me that's reached  70C...I think not.

John Campbell suggests the following for a small piece of meat and I'd recommend this method for many types of lean pork.
Preheat your oven to 90C. Take a piece of loin or tenderloin, season and sear it on all sides. Place in a roasting bag, or wrap in film or foil, and place in the oven. Cook it to an internal temperature of 64C. Rest in its bag. Carve and eat.

Identical handling to beef and lamb. Long live the temperature probe.

Howard

Comments

[Podchef]

Great post.

The main problem with sous vide is that certain chefs have pushed it beyond reason and created a monster. Slowly poached eggs--wha??? Fish cooked at low, low temperatures, for long times--wha??

Once again, the appliance of science has found the blind leading the blind down Stupid alley. It seems that the flash and excitement of a "new" cooking technique has chefs forgetting Hygine 101. And yet some of the same chefs who will eat sushi from a roadside cart, undercook venison, make raw-egg foam and drink instant coffee will obliterate fish, make pork loin jerky and can't seem to get custards right for fear of germs and bacteria.

The US is fraught with such chefs who either have no understanding of the way food works or the like to pick and choose which rules they apply when they feel like it.

I really like Sous Vide cooking--when it makes sense. It works well as a way to slowly cook tough meats while adding interest and depths of flavor. It works well to being cooking something, driving the flavors in with the vacuum process, later to finish cooking the foods off in the oven. But the All Sous Vide restaurant concept is one I knew would fail. There are a few true masters of any new gastronomy, the rest are pale imitators who bring the concept down into the mud.

As far as creepy gut crunching worms in pork--freezing the meat for 30 days kills the trichy buggers, so eat the stuff raw if you like. A vast amount of pork in American Restaurants has been frozen for a lot longer. That's why I raise my own pigs, or eat those I know.

[Alastair Vaan]

Nicely put.

My experience in catering has seen multiple incidences of chefs simply not understanding exactly which point of their process is is the critical control point (as new regulation terminology puts it), pushing them down the alley of "better cook it through". Despite new HACCP regulation they're still being missed. Interesting point - in following regulations prior to opeing my restaurant was only "persuaded" rather than required to take even basic food hygeine certification. As it is, we're having all our key staff brought to intermediate level. One reason being so they can intelligently talk to customers about why, for instance, they can have medium-rare pork.

The pedant in me has to add this though (apologies) - slowly cooked eggs predate sous-vide some centuries. Slow cooking eggs renders a different finish to the protein, becoming creamy and unctuous. And fish denatures perfectly at low temperatures (40C is quite enough...). Any lower and nothing happens, any higher and the proteins toughen. It's one of the best ways of cooking some fish in my book, with a melting finish simply not accessible by grill or in the pan. Indeed, in my brief cameo at Le Manoir, both water bath cooked eggs and sous vide salmon were both featured on the pass. And they certainly fit the gastronomic bill there. There is something to be said for Maillard flavours in the other techniques though, so I often mix the techniques to bring contrasts of texture and flavour.

a.