White Castle and food safety
Being Canadian, I’d never really heard of White Castle, the burger joint, until I saw the 2004 film, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Much more than a stoner comedy, the film was an incisive depiction of race in America. Chapman came over to my house in Guelph in 2005 one afternoon to move some furniture and we had steaks and watched the movie.
A Canadian visiting, “beautiful Northern Kentucky, famously (mis)marketed as the South Side of Cincinnati” writes in a recent blog about dining at Covington’s White Castle:
“I’ll tell you what: never have my sense of both food AND physical safety been so violated before 11pm. I walk in, and for a few minutes, could only stare. Back in the kitchen (fully open), I see a woman lay out maybe a hundred of White Castle’s trademarked bite-size burgers, or ‘Slyders’, on the grill, and, while still completely red, put buns over top the raw meat to warm. Once the meat turns an unnatural shade of grey, she throws them together with some cheese and onion to form a ‘burger’. I’m tempted to walk away and head to the (in my opinion) much safer McDonald’s. …
“I sit, take a few pictures, and prepare to savour. Oh wait, while I’m taking pictures (and getting ‘who the hell is this retard tourist and why is out after dark in such a dodgy area’) stares, I’m distracted by a small child whose mother is letting her eat fries (not hers) off the floor. …
“Well, thinking back (it has been two weeks–but don’t worry, I did jot down some notes), I can still taste the fear. The fear that I was likely going to end up spending a good portion of the night over the toilet. No part of the burgers felt or tasted safe. The cooking process, over a bed of onions, under a bed of buns, is just very, very circumspect. And the whole place was pretty dirty. But I ate them, grey and mushy as they were."
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/admin/trackback/96288
thanks for the mention! we added your blog to our blogroll cuz it made me laugh - esp the celebrity barf. woot!
Thanks for the link! I love this site!
While the restaurants themselves may not be the finest establishments, I am aware of steps they have gone through to validate their cooking process. You would be glad to hear it involves a calibrated temperature measurement device, statistical sampling and continued validation efforts...
I'd like you to expand on a few of your statements if you don't mind:
"No part of the burgers felt or tasted safe."
What does safe taste and feel like?
"The cooking process, over a bed of onions, under a bed of buns, is just very, very circumspect."
Steaming is a very efficient way of cooking. Additionally, WC uses a sophisticated supply side food safety system.
I don't mean to sound overly aggressive here but you are, in a sense, attacking a Columbus, OH treasure without just cause and scientific merit. In a sense, this is hypocritical of the other posts I've read on here that promote science based understanding of food safety. I know the folks at WC and they do outstanding work, including food safety work.