Food safety when tasting from dish
When making a dish, I of course taste it through out the process of cooking until its done. I have been extra careful - Each time I taste from the dish I use a new spoon - This means that I have to have ALOT of spoons ready all the time, and have to spend a significant amount of effort to keep them clean.
Is this common practice? Or is this too harsh compared to the norm (in restaurants). Are there any "tricks" that people use to get around the possibility of introducing your own germs into the dish, or minimizing this risk?
EDIT: I'm interested in the common practice in commercial settings (I have a small home-cooking business, and I want to align myself with the norm in restaurants etc..)
Best Answer
You don't really need a lot of tasting spoons, just one. Use your stirring spoon to pour some into your tasting spoon without touching. Or if that's too tricky, serve a bit onto a small plate/bowl.
But if you're just cooking for yourself I personally wouldn't really worry about it, because in general you'll be cooking the food at a safe temperature, not just above the danger zone (140F/60C) but something safe for all meat (180F/80C) so whatever bacteria you put in with your spoon is just going to get killed. We routinely put potentially contaminated things like raw meat into our food while cooking, and let the heat take care of it; whatever you might be carrying isn't any more dangerous.
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What procedure should be followed in the tasting of food?
Take a sample of the food from the pan using the sampling spoon. Use two spoons, a sampling and a tasting spoon. Using the sampling spoon, take a small amount of food from the container. To prevent contamination, never taste directly from a sampling spoon or any utensil used in preparation or service.What are the proper ways to taste food without contaminating?
By using separate tools such as spoons in between tasting, you can minimize the risk of cross contamination by avoiding the introduction of pathogens from a food handler's mouth and hands to the food being cooked.Do chefs reuse tasting spoons?
Most chefs can agree that the finger method or using the same spoon repeatedly are unacceptable in the kitchen today. The FDA states in the U.S. Public Health Service Food Code that the same utensil may not be used more than once to taste.How can we make sure that the food we are eating is safe?
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Answer 2
I'm interested in the common practice in commercial settings (I have a small home-cooking business, and I want to align myself with the norm in restaurants etc..)
Since this hasn't specifically been addressed yet, I'll throw in my experience in industrial kitchens/restaurants.
Plastic spoons. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Literally.
We had a bain marie at every station. At the beginning of every shift, it was re-filled with plastic spoons. Each station had their own box of spoons to refill throughout the shift. Every single dish was tasted at every single stage with a plastic spoon, which was then thrown out. I would say that I went through ~150 spoons on an average shift, god only knows how many when we were busy.
Purchased in bulk, the cost wasn't prohibitive. I would hazard a guess that a box of 2500 plastic spoons cost us about 30 USD.
While it might seem wasteful, the cleanliness/health payoff was worth it. I don't want to name names, but this was a multi-national, multi-billion dollar hotel chain (4 star/4 Diamond) and we had a third party come in and audit us 1-2 times a year, in addition to the Health Department. Both the third party and the Health Department had the authority to shut everything down at a moments notice if they didn't like what they saw. I don't know the statistics for the Health Department, but the third party rated our kitchens (we had three) in the top 10 cleanest operations in North America (within our company) more than once.
We also recycled the spoons, so there's that as well.
Answer 3
When cooking at home use the same spoon or follow Jefromi's advice. When reusing a spoon, there is very little chance of cross contamination if you just re-dip the spoon, and don't actual stir it around
When cooking commercially; practice on family and friends and record the exact recipe. When the recipe is passable or perfect, follow it exactly for your commercial batches. You should then not need to taste very often
A commercial business wont be very successful if your dishes are hit or miss. They need to be all very good, and well practised. Unless you are some famous celebrity chef of course :-)
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