Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Queball]

A lot of times you work with batter, and typically that includes uncooked, raw eggs. ... for example, making a cheesecake. In theory, if you want to check your flavorings or seasonings before you bake it by tasting the batter, you'd expose yourself to a risk of salmonella. After it is baked, it's too late. How do you handle it? Does anyone ever do that?

[riverrat49]

For somethings in cooking nothing beats tasting a great batter before it's cooked, for any worries or repercussions of said tasting there is Imodium AD 

[Kristin Meredith]

I have always tasted batters and cookie dough before it is cooked.  Have done so since I started baking at about age 8.  It has never bothered me in baking stuff and I have never been sick off it that I know.  In part, I think it is because I trust the US food system. Whether I should or not may be a whole nuther thread!

Now, to be really inconsistent, part of the reason I don't like a true Caesar salad is because of the raw egg!!!

[Trooper]

Undone eggs.
 With my Saturday morning breakfast crew I usually order my eggs "extra gooey". I tell the waitress that "I like to have a lot of membrane hanging from my fork when I eat them. Makes them slide down easy".
I do this mostly for all the attention from the group, as I mush & mix them around in with the corned beef hash.

[pmillen]

I've wondered about this, too, over the years.  I love most raw batter but I no longer eat it.

When did raw eggs become so risky?  And chickens, too?  We're supposed to treat chicken as though the skin is steeped in bacteria.

What caused this and how can we stop it? 

I used to be delighted when watching my father down a raw egg in his beer in the packing house district neighborhood bar.  I've never tried it.  And I remember them serving raw hamburger sandwiches on paydays.  I ate some.

[TLK]

Can't recall ever experiencing a problem with eating raw dough/batter etc.  Just this past weekend I had some wonderfully under-cooked poached eggs on my hash and had no issues.  And I love love LOVE homemade Caesar dressing (with extra anchovies of course).

[pz]

Although I regularly eat eggs over easy with runny yolks, have eaten cookie dough, and love my Christmas eggnog made with raw eggs, it is a calculated risk.

Below is an article at the CDC, and numbers 5 and 6 in particular address salmonella and eggs. The article also addresses the many other ways to acquire salmonella related food poisoning.

https://www.cdc.gov/features/vitalsigns/foodsafety/index.html

[Bentley]

I do what some would call "risky" food behavior all the time.  Having said that, does it not come down to trusting your system?  I realize that even though we are probably one of, if not, The most developed countries in the world, things like salmonella can happen.

I guess I would be more inclined to do it if I thought there were guidelines in place in that country to mitigate it happening!

[pz]

I do what some would call "risky" food behavior all the time.  Having said that, does it not come down to trusting your system? 

You're correct in my opinion - there are many factors in why one would acquire food poisoning, one of them in particular is bacterial titer, which is the number of bacteria present per unit volume. For instance, a raw egg might be slightly contaminated with salmonella and the cloudy white is not evident to the eye when it is raw - we likely eat these eggs all the time. However, if there are enough bacteria in the white, then it becomes cloudy when raw, and we might experience gastrointestinal difficulties.

I'm like you however, knowing the risks, you have to trust yourself when it comes to contamination, realizing that the  longer time you give bacteria (or fungi) to grow, the more heavily contaminated the product becomes.

[Queball]

Very Interesting Article, PZ. ... Thanks

[Jcorwin818]

I'm 71 and ate raw cookie dough, batter and raw beef most of my life and still going strong.  Give me a good streak tartare any day.

[GrillinGlen]

Same with me, raw dough/batter was the norm growing up.  Also during college my breakfast would be a protein shake of sorts with 3 raw eggs, just about every day for at least 2-3 years.  Do remember having the "stomach flu" at times.  Who knows

[pz]

Very Interesting Article, PZ. ... Thanks

Welcome Queball 

...  Give me a good streak tartar any day.

I'm with you - my mother sometimes fed me steak tartare when I was a baby as my baby food, and I love it to this day

[Kristin Meredith]

I did a bit of reading after I read the link from pz.  Some of it was over my head, probably need a research veterinarian  to explain to me.  But some parts I got. Salmonella in eggs is most common anymore because of salmonella in the hens ovaries.   If I got it right, this naturally occurs in .03% of eggs in the US.  In the UK, they have a vaccine that hens are required to get and I guess the instances of salmonella in eggs went way down after the vaccine was introduced.

But at .03%, it seems like a small risk.  As I get older, I may not eat as much batter because the risks are higher for the normal groups -- the very young, the old, the sick.  On the other hand, I have always felt that I consumed so many Hostess Ho-Ho's and Choco-diles in my life that my body probably contains some protective layer of preservatives that is probably impenetrable at this point.

[Free Mr. Tony]

Undone eggs.
 With my Saturday morning breakfast crew I usually order my eggs "extra gooey". I tell the waitress that "I like to have a lot of membrane hanging from my fork when I eat them. Makes them slide down easy".
I do this mostly for all the attention from the group, as I mush & mix them around in with the corned beef hash.

That has to be one of the most unappetizing ways that I have ever heard breakfast ordered. I do love good (not the canned dog food stuff) corned beef hash with an overeasy egg. Best I've ever had by a country mile is at the White gull inn, fish creek Wisconsin.

As far as the Caesar issue, I've always read that the lemon juice pretty much "cooks" the egg. Similar to ceviche where the acid "cooks" the seafood. I make homemade Caesar and other than having garlic dragon breath,  it's amazing.