Busy day

[ellarien]

Oof. Today I picked up groceries, traded in $30 of small change, did a supernumerary load of laundry in the hope (not fulfilled) of unwrinkling some pants that got in a slightly-too-hot dryer last time, cleaned the kitchen -- including the floor -- and parts of the bathroom, vacuumed, dusted and polished the bedroom, cooked dinner, and did a pile of ironing.

I think I won't bother again with catfish still on the bone. I did with it pretty much what I always do with catfish -- baked it in foil with a squirt of lemon and a good sprinkle of ginger and black pepper -- and then scraped it off the bones in the kitchen, but I still got a mouthful or two of spiky ribs.

I'm not clear why the "steam in bag" package of frozen broccoli, carrots and cauliflower was so insistent that it had to be thoroughly cooked. People eat those raw all the time, don't they?

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

When raw food is packaged commercially, and they expect it will be eaten raw, there are very strict requirements about bacterial contamination. If the food is going to be cooked before eating, they don't have to be quite so careful about keeping e coli and so forth out of the packages, because cooking would kill any bacteria.

[ellarien]

That makes sense, but I've never seen such emphatic warnings on a humble packet of frozen veg before.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

About the veg - that's just the supermarket/packagers covering their backsides. You get it all the time on meat that is traditionally undercooked (like beef and lamb) which the cooking instructions suggest should be charred to the centre. If you go get food poisoning of any kind then they will just say you plainly didn't follow the instructions on the packet and therefore they can't be sued.

[ellarien]

I happen to like my beef and lamb well and truly cooked -- not that I've ever been able to buy raw lamb here -- but I've never seen this on frozen veg before. I wonder if it's a new regulation.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

As lil_shepherd says, it's partly to cover their backs, but also there is more likelihood of bacteria being introduced by careless handling if the veg are peeled, chopped and prepared in a factory than if you buy the veg au naturel and then prepare them at home.

[ellarien]

I've never seen instructions that emphatic on frozen veg -- which are presumably at least blanched before freezing -- before, but that does make sense, at least if one assumes that there are higher standards for the manufacturing of those big trays of raw carrots and broccoli sold as party nibbles.