It’s Taste of Charlotte not Taste of Bacon.

And whatever the meat, don’t wash it.

Fox Charlotte (that’s in North Carolina) interviewed some vendors at the annual Taste of Charlotte, where Mital Naik of the Brazz Steakhouse booth was preparing to feed 5,000 people a sampling of 10 types of meats prepared on a traditional Brazilian grill.

"Today we're doing filet wrapped in bacon and chicken wrapped in bacon and scallops wrapped in bacon," Naik said.

As Health Officials race against the clock to determine the cause of an E. coli outbreak just hours away in Atlanta, Naik said he's making sure his high-end steak house's meat is thoroughly cooked and washed. Naik said, "It's something you have to think about."

Don't wash raw meats. Salmonella and other bugs can be sprayed up to 3 feet away by washing. Canadian, American and even British governments all recommend no washing of raw meat. Washing cooked meat may not help with that high-end appeal.

Albert, our friend in France, has some things to say about restaurant inspections, the various certifications and what they really mean. Translation into English by Amy Hubbell.

This question was already raised in an article on food safety and communication in food service in May 2011. Now La Dépêche is reporting "Three tables certified for good behavior" (7 June 2012).

Is this about putting scores on doors in France?

Is it about a controlled inspection that has just certified the hygiene holy grail?

And well no… but let’s just see what it’s about:

“A master restaurateur and his team chose to take a year to prepare to get the hygiene certification logo from the Food Service Food Safety Association (ASAR), validated by the BVC (audit office and council). This means that this professional obtained a minimum of 70% compliance out of 330 evaluation points. “My team and I have been tested over an entire day,” explained the restaurateur. “It’s an extremely thorough evaluation that leaves nothing to chance in matters of hygiene and food quality. From maintenance of the kitchen up to the quality of referenced products and the state of the dining room. He added, “Nothing is possible without the willingness and training of the team. It’s a partnership.”

And then the newspaper asks this very touching question: “But why would they want to undergo such a drastic certification process?”

Doesn’t this “drastic certification process” with only 70% compliance also mean there was 30% non compliance?

In short, the answer is of interest:

“Simply because I believe that many restaurateurs call themselves professionals and are not. It’s also a choice to take a qualitative step for me and my clients who are reassured to know that they can come to … with peace of mind.” [Note: names of restaurants have been removed.] This hygiene certification attracts few restaurateurs in Toulouse mainly because of the personal investment and the financial cost. A pioneer in the field, … of the … Brasserie: “In this profession, rigor must be everywhere: from the way the personnel are dressed to the traceability of the food.” Another candidate for this strict evaluation: … manager and founder of … “This process is truly a constraint but it is a guarantee of our profession where close is never good enough.” “To undertake this evaluation, the company must free up a certain amount of money,” admits Patrice Rotat, head of the BVC for Toulouse who clearly stipulates that this evaluation does not replace the veterinary inspections.”

It’s an age-old problem. Hygiene has a price; we also know that it has no price, for the consumers/clients. You might as well get started…

It would be interesting to know, if with 70% compliance and, perhaps, 30% non compliance, what the veterinary services would have thought, as they are the ones who do the “real” inspections.

Seventy per cent compliance to get a safety certificate? Why not? Everyone has to make a living, but does the consumer know what this really means?

How can we distinguish a restaurant that obtained 100% compliance from one that only got 70% and puts up the same certificate? The reality of this type of certification, even if it is a step in the right direction, can also be challenged because the restaurateur says that he prepared with his team for a year. The inspection by this company, was it announced or was it impromptu? We don’t know. Nothing is said either about the next goal: more than 70% compliance?

Preparing for a year to obtain what seems to be normal hygiene says it all.

In the end, what should we take from this report, closer to marketing food safety than the culture of food safety, is that there is still work to be done in spite of the total number of inspections undertaken by the DGAL. This time, change is not for now.

Parmalat Australia Ltd has recalled Pauls Smarter White Milk (1L) from Woolworths, Coles, BP Service Stations and smaller independent outlets in NT due to Listeria Monocytogenes contamination. Listeria may cause illness in pregnant women and their unborn babies, the elderly and people with low immune systems.

For further information, please contact Parmalat Australia Ltd on 1800 676 961.

The Canadian government is unveiling a food-safety bill today that will hike penalties for serious offences to $5 million.

Sarah Schmidt of Postmedia News writes the bill, to be tabled in the Senate, could bring together as many as five food statutes with varying standards under one piece of legislation — the food provisions of the Food and Drugs Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Fish Inspection Act and the Canada Agricultural Products Act.

The move follows a recommendation from Sheila Weatherill to simplify and modernize federal legislation and regulations that affect food safety. The government turned to Weatherill to conduct an independent investigation on the state of food safety in Canada after the 2008 deadly listeriosis outbreak linked to deli meats produced at a federally inspected facility.

Weatherill, who zeroed in on a "vacuum in senior leadership" among government officials, directed more than half of her 57 recommendations to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency following the death of 23 Canadians who consumed contaminated meat.

Under current rules, anyone convicted of a serious offence could be fined up to $250,000. Under the new act, penalties could be as high as $5 million, or, in the case of the most serious offences, even higher at the court's discretion.

With the Stanley Cup Finals set to end tonight (I'm not convinced New Jersey will prolong the inevitable), my sports-watching efforts will soon switch to Euro 2012 soccer (or non-American football). It's not the most exciting sport but I do like the lack of commercial breaks. According to Sports Illustrated, co-host Ukraine's team has been hit by some sort of pathogen that is affecting 10 players and almost cancelled a warm-up game yesterday. Lots of vomit associated with a team sport? Sounds like norovirus.

The main concern is over Ukraine's most-capped player, midfielder Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, who has been on a drip.
"We have to bring the guys out of this condition,'' coach Oleg Blokhin said. "It's good that the poisoning didn't happen on June 11. For me, the most important thing is healthy footballers.''

Team doctor Leonid Mironov told reporters Wednesday that Tuesday's match against Turkey, which Ukraine lost 2-0, was almost cancelled after the players had come down with the bug that was causing some of them to vomit. Blokhin said that fullback Bohdan Butko and midfielder Denys Harmash played against Turkey despite being ill.

Intertubes have prevented so many bar fights.

In the past, someone would assert John Fogerty was singing, “There’s a bathroom on the right,” when he was really singing, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

Now, check the web, lyrics are there, punches avoided. But arguments in the absence of data continue, predominantly on dumb cooking shows.

The MasterChef franchise has extended to Australia and New Zealand. I don’t watch it but saw this story from the New Zealand Herald where the eliminated contestant made protestations that his chicken was perfect, while the judges disagreed.

“Controversial MasterChef contestant Tony Price has hit out at the reality show's judges after he was eliminated for serving "slightly undercooked" chicken.

“Price was told he was being sent home after last night's tense cookbook challenge because his spicy Spanish chicken dish was undercooked.

But Price - who sparked a nationwide debate about "narking" after dobbing in two contestants for cheating in last week's Singapore-based challenge - today told nzherald.co.nz his chicken dish was "cooked to perfection."

"I knew then that I didn't serve undercooked chicken and I still know now that it wasn't undercooked," he said.

"It was moist all the way through. It was in an oven at 200 degrees for 35 minutes - that's after I'd browned it off in a pan - then it went into a resting oven for another 30 minutes at 70 degrees.

"It can't not have been cooked - it's a matter of physics and maths."

Price, an Auckland resident who is now cooking fulltime, said the judges should have criticised him for putting them at risk of salmonella - a food bug which can be caught by eating raw chicken.

"If (chicken) isn't cooked, you can't eat it. That's a black and white thing. If it wasn't cooked through enough to get me eliminated, they should have been slamming me for having put them in a dangerous situation (because) they ate so much of it.

There’s an easy, data-based solution: use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.

I have no idea what narking or dobbing mean.  

State health officials say last month three people in the New Orleans area contracted E. coli bacteria. One of them recently died from the illness.

The funeral for 21-month-old Maelan Elizabeth Graffagnini was held Monday. Now the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals has some partial answers.

Two other adults in the New Orleans area were also sickened by the same strain of E. coli linked to a multi-state outbreak.

But Tuesday night, state health officials are discounting speculation that in this new case, the bacteria was contracted from animals at the Audubon petting zoo. They say their scientific investigation shows otherwise.

Dr. Raoult Ratard, who is the state epidemiologist, wrote in a statement: "Contact with a petting zoo can be ruled out due to the fact that no cases, except one, had contact with the local petting zoo. The likely exposure is a food source but this has yet to be confirmed."

According to Dr. Gary Balsamo, state public health veterinarian and assistant state epidemiologist in the Office of Public Health, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, "Three cases of toxigenic E. coli were reported to DHH in May 2012 in the greater New Orleans area. These cases all have the same 'DNA fingerprints.' They are part of a CDC cluster of cases coming from several southern states. The CDC investigation has not yet identified the common source. Rumors that the strain are coming from petting zoos appear to be unfounded."

Evan wants to know if health types investigating outbreaks of foodborne illness – or, as it’s initially described, a lot of people barfing, go figure out why – have any training. And if so, what kind of training was offered and whether it was any good.

Evan Henke, a PhD student at the University of Minnesota (right, pretty much as shown) wants to know this info to be able to summarize the typical training and work experiences of public health disaster responders in the U.S.

And get his PhD.

Evan writes, “To build the evidence base of determinants of health department performance, The University of Minnesota has developed an online survey for state and local epidemiologists and environmental health professionals involved in foodborne disease outbreak response in the U.S.

“The Institute of Medicine has long recognized the need to describe the organizational and environmental determinants of public health department performance. This need is intensified in programs related to public health emergency preparedness and response, where public health activities are critical to the mitigation of and recovery from disasters.

“Foodborne disease outbreaks are regularly recurring disasters requiring public health action including laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation, environmental inspection, and regulatory product traceback.

“Several determinants of public health performance for these activities have been proposed. In focus groups conducted in 2010 by the University of Minnesota, state and local foodborne disease responders identified predictors of performance including the following:

-Size of Jurisdiction
-Disease Reporting Laws
-Program Budget
-Organizational Structure
-Surveillance Processes
-Staff Training
-Staff Experience in Similar Disaster Response
-Inter-Professional Relationships and More

“If you are an epidemiologist or environmental health professional, please consider reviewing the survey consent and participating at the link below. The survey will require 15-20 minutes.”

https://live.datstat.com/DCSS-Collector/Survey.ashx?Name=FOBOS_Survey_1

This survey has been approved by The University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board (Study 1110E05746). If you have questions about the survey, please contact Evan Henke, PhD candidate at The University of Minnesota, at henk0071@umn.edu.

As an Anglophone Canadian, it’s second nature to make fun of the French.

My Welsh grandfather, with his Winston Churchill ashtray, would often pronounce his hatred of the Canadian version, the Quebecois, while watching Toronto-Montreal hockey games back when both teams didn’t suck.

That’s how old I am.

The New York Times reports the Cantine California started parking in Paris in April, the latest in a recent American culinary invasion that includes chefs at top restaurants; trendy menu items like cheesecake, bagels and bloody Marys; and notions like chalking the names of farmers on the walls of restaurants.

What the story describes as the hugely popular burger truck Le Camion Qui Fume (The Smoking Truck), owned by Kristin Frederick, a California native who graduated from culinary school in Paris, I describe as an advert for chefs-don’t-know-crap-about-food-safety (see Heston-norovirus-isn’t-my-fault-Blumenthal, who prepared some stuff for the Queen).

American chefs are at the helm of some of Paris’s hippest restaurants, like Daniel Rose of Spring, Kevin O’Donnell of L’Office and Braden Perkins of Verjus. And the city’s collective crush on high-end hamburgers continues: Parisians are paying 29 euros, or just over $36, for the popular burger at Ralph’s, the Hamptons-Wyoming-chic restaurant in the palatial Ralph Lauren store.

The story is full of hopeless clichés and food porn, but worse is the food safety in the accompanying video, with apparently raw beef as hamburgers; I guess it’s OK because it’s grass-fed (note to insufferable foodies – that’s called sarcasm).

Amy’s going to France for research at the end of the month (that's her, on the right, in France, me on the left). My recollection is she liked her street-food baguettes. The produce and seafood in Brisbane is far superior to Paris. The bloody Marys were better in Manhattan (Kansas).