Gratuitous food porn shot of the day - oven baked salmon, squash soup, garlic bread, strawberries and melon
Farmed salmon fillets with oil, lime, garlic, rosemary and white wine, baked in a 400F oven. Roasted butternut squash soup with apple, cinnamon, nutmeg potato and carrot, pureed, and using a homemade 
chicken stock (the stock makes the soup). Cheap whole wheat buns I picked up at Dillion’s at 7 a.m. after dropping Chapman off at the airport, topped with roasted garlic in butter, rosemary and some shredded Italian cheese (the bread, not the Chapman).
She’s also eating whole strawberries and chunks of melon. Her six teeth are helping with that.
Higher processing temperature may reduce listeria risk in smoked salmon
I’m a big fan of smoked salmon, especially the farmed kind – it’s more sustainable. The convenience and nutrients are hard to top – except maybe with a slice of tomato.
The problem with such refrigerated, ready-to-eat foods is listeria, the bacterium that’s everywhere and grows at refrigerator temperatures.
Last night, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Classic Smokehouse (2003) Inc. warned the public not to consume Classic Canadian Wild Sockeye Trims because the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
The affected product, Classic Canadian Wild Sockeye Lox Trim, was sold in 454g vacuum packages bearing UPC 3000550008256 and PACKED ON dates from MA 02 (May 2, 2009) to JL 28 (July 28, 2009) inclusive.
This product has been distributed in British Columbia.
There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product.
At least not this time.
Such listeria-related recalls are common, and why work continues to increase the safety of refrigerated RTE foods. A recent study from the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists, determined that smoking salmon at adequately high temperatures is a step in reducing the risk of Listeria monocytogenes in the fish.
Researchers from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Wyndmoor, PA, found greater inactivation rates of Listeria monocytogenes occurred in samples processed at higher temperatures and in samples containing higher concentrations of salt and smoke compound. The inactivation rate increased tenfold when the temperature increased by 5° C, indicating that smoking temperature is a main factor affecting the inactivation of the pathogen. In addition, salt and smoke compounds also contribute to the inactivation effect.
While such research continues, pregnant women should avoid refrigerated RTE foods like smoked salmon. Amy’s back on the smoked salmon, and this is her lunch for later today: smoked salmon and walnuts over spring mix, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (left).
Gratuitous food porn shot of the day - oven-baked salmon, asparagus spears, baked potatoes and roasted corn
Sorenne eating dinner with mom and dad, Oct. 8, 2009.
Oven-roasted salmon fillets (the farm-raised kind – more sustainable) with olive oil, lime juice, garlic and fresh thyme, corn-on-the-cob (Sorenne’s favorite, but getting starchy as the cold weather moves in), baked Russett potatoes and asparagus spears, the frozen kind, which were surprisingly good.
Gratuitous food porn shot of the day - grilled salmon and sweet potato fries
Sorenne eating lunch with dad, Oct. 1, 2009.
Marinate farmed salmon fillets (I prefer aquaculture because it is more sustainable) in lime juice, garlic, olive oil and fresh rosemary.
Microwave 2 sweet potatoes, cool, cut into fry-like segments; baste in oil and rosemary.
Turn grill to high. Put fries on upper rack, salmon on direct heat; cook until an internal temperature of 120F.
Confused Moms to Be
When I was pregnant with Sorenne in the summer of 2008, we spent a month in Canada while the Maple Leaf Listeria outbreak was, in retrospect, percolating in cold-cuts that were being consumed across the country.
If I hadn’t been informed by my food safety guru husband, I could have very easily consumed ready-to-eat deli meat on our car trip north, potentially putting my baby at risk. Sorenne turned out healthy, huge and wonderful. And we are thankful every day.
Several of my former students, friends, and family members are pregnant right now, and somehow I’ve become the expert on food safety during pregnancy. These women have expressed frustration and confusion about the conflicting information they read and receive from their doctors regarding what they can and cannot eat during pregnancy. While I generally think moderation and eliminating stress are priorities, there are a few food safety concerns that are definitely worth considering. I’ve already written on “What you can and cannot eat during pregnancy,” but in light of major outbreaks (and this is barfblog, of the 4 Rs), the information bears repeating.
Pregnant women should avoid:
- ready to eat refrigerated foods such as deli meats, smoked fish, hot dogs, sausages, pâté, and the like. If the food is shelf-stable (canned), it should be ok. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find canned pâté in Manhattan, KS during my pregnancy – but now it’s available at Hyvee.
- soft-serve ice-cream which has been suspected as a listeria risk
- soft cheeses (brie, camembert – pasteurized or not) and we are uncertain about blue-veined cheeses (I toasted or melted my cheese to alleviate my fears. Now this seems laughable since I’m not eating any dairy while I breastfeed.)
- and sprouts because they have been identified as a source of listeria and other pathogens.
Listeria is one of the main food safety concerns during pregnancy because it causes a high rate of miscarriage and stillbirths.
For further reading, consult the Bad bug book, http://www.foodsafety.gov/~mow/chap6.html and the CDC’s excellent site http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/pregnancy_gateway/infection_list.htm#protect
William Shatner speaks out on salmon
Montreal-native William Shatner – Captain Kirk, Boston Legal dude, Priceline negotiator and spoken-word enthusiast -- has written Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking that salmon farms be removed from wild-salmon migration routes in the Broughton and Discovery islands area of British Columbia.
Shatner, who filmed an episode of the Boston Legal series in the Broughton Archipelago off northern Vancouver Island, says in his letter that salmon farms are having a disastrous impact on "one of Earth's most precious assets, the wild salmon and steelhead of B.C."
Mary Ellen Walling, executive director, B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, responded that while Shatner’s acting credentials are solid (really?) -- his understanding of fisheries research is less stellar.
Activist groups should, at least, be able to meet the same standards of scrutiny applied to industry. And for journalists who often see themselves as the guardians of the public interest, it seems prudent to be wary of being manipulated, even by those who appear to walk on the side of the public good rather than the side of corporate self-interest. Beam me up, Scotty.
That didn’t go over too well with the locals. Several letter writers pointed out that T.J. Hooker was entitled to his views, didn’t represent industry, and there were lots of ways to do research. Aquaculture folks – facts are important, but are never enough.
Lawsuit alleges man gets 9-foot tapeworm from seafood restaurant
The first salmon Amy cooked for me – she caught me a delicious salmon – was damn near raw. Now, we cook it to about 125 F, checked using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer, and it warms up to 130-140 F in the minutes from grill to gullet.
Apparently that didn’t happen for Anthony Franz, who is suing the parent company of Shaw’s Crab House for causing him to become “violently ill” after eating undercooked salmon at the trendy River North restaurant.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the suit, filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, claims Franz ate periodically at Shaw’s between May and August 2006 as part of a healthier diet.
For several days, Franz became violently ill and eventually passed a nine-foot long tapeworm, the suit said.
A suburban doctor he visited in late August said he got the tapeworm from eating undercooked fish. …
He claims in the two-count suit that the restaurant failed to supervise employees in safe food handling and allowed customers to eat food that was not safe to consume.
Raw and undercooked seafood continues to present risks. The N.Y. Times covered the issue of tapeworms in seafood in a 1981 article.
Stick it in.
What you can and can't eat when you're pregnant
At our first prenatal visit, which at 8 weeks seemed very late, we finally got some food safety advice from the medical staff. Along with the typical list of foods to avoid (non-pasteurized cheeses, smoked salmon, etc.), the staff member told us if we do eat cold cuts, it is advisable to get them from the deli counter in the supermarket rather than buying the packaged ones from big companies. We were a bit surprised, as this was … exactly wrong advice. The risk of listeria from the deli section is generally higher because it’s difficult to clean the slicers and we do not know how often they are cleaned. While Ben and Doug have been going back and forth about which cheeses are safe for me and Dani to eat (is pasteurized brie OK or not? what about blue-veined cheeses?), I realize I cannot eliminate every risk from my diet. I can, however, minimize some of them. I just slice the brie, put it on Doug’s homemade baguettes, and pop it in the toaster. (It’s also delicious with a sliced beet.) The heat serves as a kill-step in case there is a concern. No, I do not use my meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the soft cheese. I supposed you could if you really are worried, but at that point it’s probably easier to not eat brie.
Although I very much miss smoked salmon -- a staple food before pregnancy, I will not eat it unless it has been thoroughly cooked. Yesterday Salmolux Inc recalled 6140 packages of their Wild Alaskan Smoked Salmon Nova Lox because of a possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Unfortunately, this kind of recall is common in minimally processed ready-to-eat foods. While no one is reported ill from this possible contamination, the risk is one I’m not willing to take.
