Sorenne did not sleep last night.

There was seemingly nothing to console her, and I was up much of the night.

But I’m getting some payback now as she enters the third hour of her nap, and decided a homemade hamburger with grilled corn and salad would make a decent lunch for myself. Coupled with the season premier of Californication on the recorderer, I was set.

Except I didn’t have Californication because I can’t tape it until tonight because Amy just had to watch and tape the season premier of The Amazing Race in case she missed a minute of the zzzzzzzzzzzz action.

And then I got this how-to-cook-a-hamburger advice by the geniuses at epicurious, forwarded by my friend Mike.

James Oliver Cury reveals his burger snobbery by suggesting those in search of a medium-rare burger – whatever that is – avoid “low-end” eateries because high-end eateries use higher quality beef and “preparation methods are superior: clean, safe, reliable.”

Guess he’s never heard of The Fat Duck.

In a linked story about burgers, the poke test for doneness is promoted:

“Medium-rare is softly yielding, medium is semifirm, well-done is firm."

 Another says he prefers the visual approach, judging by the juices:

"When they start to come out of the top of the burger, it's medium. When the juices that have oozed out of the top get cooked (stop looking red and become a bit more clear), it's medium-well."

A tip-sensitive thermometer is the only accurate way to determine whether a hamburger has been safely cooked to 160F.

Sorenne woke up before I could finish this, so I changed the TV in the background to something more child-friendly than, No Country For Old Men – Goodfellas was on AMC -- and safely fed her some leftovers.
 

Aside from travelling, I don’t carry my Canadian passport with me -- the last thing I need is to lose it while overseas. Sure, I understood when the doctor or Liquor King employee asked me to produce it, but not when I was refused a burger for lack of I.D.

This past sunny Sunday a few gal pals and I decided to grab a burger for lunch at an Irish pub-style restaurant. The place had appeal because of the outdoor seating and 10 dollar burger and fries (which we’d tried and loved before). Upon ordering our meals (sans alcohol) we were asked to present I.D. When I produced my Canadian driver’s license I was told that we could not eat at the establishment unless I presented my passport. Gutted, we grabbed a bite at Burger Fuel instead.

It’s probably not a common experience, but it had me thinking: Is the pub that’s so strict with its patrons equally as strict with its food safety? Would my burger have been cooked to the proper internal temperature using a meat thermometer – the passport of burgers?

Evan Henke, a student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (right, sorta as shown), writes in this guest barfblog.com post:

During a recent trip to a Minneapolis restaurant, I ordered what is perhaps Minneapolis’s most significant contribution to the culinary world: the “Jucy Lucy.”

Legend has it that the Lucy, a hamburger with cheese stuffed inside of the beef patty before cooking (right, not exactly as shown), was invented in Minneapolis, although debate still rages as to which burger joint was the first to offer the Lucy to its customers. As I bit into the Lucy, I noticed that the center of the burger was quite undercooked, and I did not notice the use of a thermometer on the nearby grill. I immediately wondered what effect stuffing the cheese inside of the patty had on the survival of foodborne pathogens during the cooking process.

Maybe the added weight of the cheese would better insulate the side of the burger exposed to the surface grill compared to cooking a normal patty of equal thickness without flipping. Maybe any added moisture in the cheese would help kill any pathogen present in the beef, as long as the moisture was present.

But the true food safety implications of stuffing a ground beef patty with cheese or other ingredients are not well documented (left, not exactly as shown). The amounts of fat and water that escape from the cheese during cooking are not documented, and how those amounts affect the survival of foodborne pathogens present in the patty is unclear. It has been documented that E. coli O157:H7 shows increased resistance to heat in patties with higher fat and lower moisture contents[1]. It is possible that the composition of a stuffed burger, depending on the stuffing and fat and moisture content of the ground beef, could favor the survival of foodborne pathogens relative to a burger with no stuffing.

In a world of foods that taste delicious but can be deleterious to your health, the Jucy Lucy and stuffed burgers sizzle in mystery. How the addition of cheese to the center of the patty affects the survival of foodborne pathogens ought to be documented, not just for the health of my fellow Minneapolitans, but for the health of burger eaters everywhere. And of course, thermometer use is recommended whenever preparing ground beef.

The Make Your Own Jucy Lucy video is included below http://heavytable.com/make-your-own-jucy-lucy/. Warning: Conventional safe cooking technique not displayed in video.

Evan Henke is a student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health pursuing a Master’s degree in Environmental Health. An avid fan of foodborne disease epidemiology and food safety, he spends most of his free time angering his friends with his knowledge of the food chain and careful scrutiny of food safety practices.

1. Ahmed, Nahed M., Donald E. Conner, and Dale L. Huffman. "Heat-Resistance of Escherichia Coli O157:H7 in Meat and Poultry as Affected by Product Composition." Journal of Food Science 60.3 (1995): 606-10.

 

Making Your Own Jucy Lucys from The Heavy Table on Vimeo.

Among the six most common ways to ruin a burger, which Yahoo Food is promoting ahead of Labor Day, is this nose-stretcher:

Overcooking: This should be a crime recognized by the federal government. For the popular medium-rare, grill the meat exactly three minutes on one side (keeping the grill lid closed) and two minutes on the other. If you're going to add cheese, let it melt on top for another minute (and keep that cover closed!).  We like our burgers medium rare, so much we've even sent them back at restaurants when they go beyond medium.

Nonsense. Using time make no allowances for variation in grill temperature, thickness of the hamburger patty and composition of the hamburger. A tip-sensitive digital thermometer is the only way to get a burger to the correct temperature of 160F, without overcooking.

Thanks to the barfblog reader who sent along the tip.