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Several people in California have been affected by a botulism outbreak originating at a gas station. Botulinum bacteria are anaerobic and can contaminate improperly canned foods, such as a gas station's nacho cheese:
An outbreak of severe food poisoning in Sacramento, California, that left nine people in hospital has been linked to cheese sauce sold on nacho crisps at a family-run petrol station.
[...] Cases of botulism, a rare and sometimes fatal form of food poisoning, were first reported on 5 May and in total nine people are confirmed to have it. One of the victims is reportedly so ill she cannot speak or keep her eyes open.
[...] Botulism poisoning is caused by toxins released by a type of bacteria called Clostridium botulinum. Human digestive processes cannot break down the toxic chemical, which moves to the nervous system. Symptoms emerge in adults 18-36 hours after eating contaminated food.
Also at CBS and The Sacramento Bee.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @12:20PM (9 children)
I worked at a place with a very dodgy deli nearby and if you ate the fresh stuff you gonna die, if you want a day off from work buy a salad and you'll be sitting on the toilet for the next 24 hours, but fried and "burnt" stuff was safe because the botulism toxin (along with a bunch of other food poisoning stuff) dies above 170F or so.
That makes the story interesting. The bacteria spores need pressure cooking to kill so bad pressure cooking or water bath canning can result in the toxin being denatured but the spores live and reproduce. The real question is food service workers are tested on temps and you're supposed to store cheese above 175 to wipe out the toxin but possibly some idiot memorized ground meat at 165 and set the nachos to that temp or even lower. Although I have a more interesting theory.
I do a lot of cooking and this comes up as a judgment call, like I made Italian Sausage and Grapes with a wine reduction sauce last weekend and it was delicious but if you're worried about botulism sausages (which does occasionally happen) then you need to cook to 180 or so internal. Of course in that sauce I could cook to 200F and it would still be "juicy". So yeah I donno, when my instant read thermometer reads 165 I feel better but I know there's still risk for awhile. On the other hand who would want to eat fish cooked to 175 that would be fish jerky even if its botulism free, of course canned or sausage fish is kinda rare for this reason ...
From my experiences with crap tier foods "most" cheez dispensers normally seem to be set to about 9000F and I'm not sure undiluted nacho cheez even flows out of a machine with normal viscosity at a mere 100F or whatever they had it set to.
That would imply they were doing something pants on head stupid, like diluting their cheez with water or chicken grease or something to save money, with the side effect that "normal" viscosity of heavily diluted cheez is now perhaps only 100F, so they set the thermostat to 100F to get the right consistency, resulting in a shitload of people getting sick as a side effect. And they're hoping everyone talks about the canning process having failed and nobody mentions the "cheez" in the dispenser was 25% used fryer grease or bodily fluids or Soylent or paint solvent or whatever which led to them getting away with low temps which led indirectly to the botulism outbreak. Its an interesting conspiracy theory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:50PM
Don't forget that pH is your friend. You need those pressure-cooker temps to take care of the spores if your pH is too high. You don't have to turn that fillet into fish leather if you cook it in some acid, or like with ceviche, you don't cook it at all.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Monday May 22 2017, @02:30PM (7 children)
Canned fish is rare? Never heard of tuna, salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines, anchovies, etc? They're all available at my small local grocery store (and the herring goes great on some rye).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @05:04PM (6 children)
Yes good point I was thinking of home canning. I don't think the Ball book lists a fish recipe even for pressure cooking.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 22 2017, @06:49PM (2 children)
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
400 delicious and creative recipes for today
Published 2006
ISBN 0-7788-0139-X
pg. 394
Seafood
Prepare fish for home canning as you would for cooking. Leave the backbone in small fish and debone larger fish. Soak fish in a salt-water brine before canning. Because seafood and fish are very low in acidity, you must can them in 8-ounce (250 mL) or pint (500 mL) jars. Heat penetration of larger jars may be inadequate to destroy bacterial spores.
Fish
Preserving a fisherman's catch extends the pleasure of a successful fishing trip with ready-to-use fish from your pantry. This recipe works for all varieties of fish, including salmon and shad, with the exception of tuna (see www.homecanning.com or www.homecanning.ca for a home-canned tuna recipe). Process fish only in 8-ounce (250 mL) or pint (500 mL) jars.
TIP
Clean fish caught within 2 hours after it is caught. Keep cleaned fish chilled until ready to can.
-----
1 cup pickling or canning salt 250 mL
16 cups water 4 L
Fresh fish, bones removed if fish is large
-----
1. In a large stainless steel bowl, dissolve pickling salt in water to make salt-water brine. Cut fish into pieces just long enough to fit into jars. Place fish in brine and let soak in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Drain well for about 10 minutes.
2. Prepare weighted-gauge pressure canner and lids 30 minutes before ready to pack fish. (For more information, see page 382.) Wash jars but do not heat. (Because fish is packed chilled, it must be packed into room temperature jars to prevent jar breakage.)
3. Pack fish, skin side next to glass, into jars to within a generous 1 inch (2.5 cm) of top of jar. Do not add liquid. Remove any visible air bubbles. Wipe rim with a paper towel moistened with vinegar. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
4. Place jars in pressure canner. Adjust water level, lock lid and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Vent steam for 10 minutes, then close vent. Continue heating to achieve 10 lbs (69 kPa) pressure. Process both 8-ounce (250 mL) and pint (500 mL) jars for 100 minutes.
5. Turn off heat. Let pressure return to zero naturally. Wait 2 minutes longer, then open vent. Remove canner lid. Wait 10 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store. (For more information, see pages 383-384.)
---
Next page is a canning recipe for clams, and those two pages comprise the entirety of the Seafood section. Also, I randomly opened to page 369 and found a recipe for Seafood Cocktail Sauce.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @07:48PM (1 child)
Hmm yeah.. Wouldn't you rather be canning "peach and rum" sauce? I like that. Also the brandied apples. From memory, all the recipes involving canning with liquor taste good.
Also this will probably sound bizarre but one of the few things you can can that is available commercially but is cheaper to make yourself, is, or was, anyway, taco sauce. Also I can play games with drops of hot sauce to get it just the way I like it, which is fun. I can applesauce far better than anything available in a store, ditto jams and jellys, but it'll be significantly more expensive.
The Ball book also has a recipe for a praline caramel nut mixture sauce which tastes good on a cake or ice cream.
I don't usually eat unhealthy junk food, but I rationalize it as canning it myself intensely limits my intake and my homemade stuff tastes better. Applesauce in unlimited quantities makes people fat; I make maybe a six pint batch every couple months, divided among the rest of the family that's not going to make me fat although it is delicious next to a pork chop every couple weeks.
Making my own canned junk food is delicious fun. That might be part of my mental block in imagining pressure canned catfish or cod or clams or whatever. I'm just not feeling it. I'm probably going to serve some peach and rum sauce on homemade vanilla ice cream next weekend at a family party, after thinking of that its hard to imagine some fish head staring at me out of the same glass jar.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 22 2017, @08:11PM
My favorite junk food to can so far is "orange marmalade". It's more like a sauce if you don't boil it long enough and I add habeñeros (as the recipe calls for) or other hot peppers to make it spicy. It uses an insane amount of sugar. I think I used 30 cups of sugar (over 10 lbs?) with 16 pounds of oranges or something crazy like that.
Once it's done, you have a sauce that you can easily use to make some very tasty orange chicken or pulled pork. Add some rice and stir fried veggies and you can pretend it's healthy. At the very least, it's a meal rather than a dessert.
Not everything that you can has to be junk. For example, I canned some sliced apples in ultra light syrup (1/2 cup sugar per 5 cups water... compare to simply syrup which is 1:1 sugar and water). I just wanted to can them before they went bad and didn't have the time to make goddamn apple butter or something, as delicious as that is. Since the apples are already sliced and peeled, they are ready to be used for an apple pie or crumble. Or you could just eat them as is.
I would have to run the numbers, but it seems to me that taco sauce would be more expensive to home can than buy at the store due to the cost of tomatoes, while jellies and jams might be significantly cheaper than what the store offers, if you can get a cheap source of fruit (such as one of those farms where you can go there and pick blueberries, or an extra dank sale at ALDI where berries are under $1 per unit). The orange marmalade I mentioned is going to be much cheaper than strawberry or blueberry concoctions, but it seems like you can still beat store bought jellies. And you can add extra stuff like rum or vanilla.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 22 2017, @07:04PM (2 children)
This is from my Presto manual. Page 46-47.
PRESSURE CANNING FISH AND SEAFOOD
Pressure canning is the only safe method for canning fish and seafood.
Only fresh fish should be canned and these should be bled and thoroughly cleaned of all viscera and membranes when caught, or as soon as possible. Canning should be restricted to proven varieties where it is definitely known that a product of good quality may be obtained.
Follow step-by-step directions beginning on page 12 for canning procedure. Process fish and seafood according to the following recipes.
CANNING RECIPES: FISH AND SEAFOOD
CLAMS-WHOLE OR MINCED
Keep clams on ice until ready to can. Scrub shells thoroughly and rinse. Steam 5 minutes and open. Remove clam meat. Collect and save clam juice. Wash clam meat in salted water using 1 teaspoon of salt for each quart of water. Rinse. In a pot, cover clam meat with boiling water containing 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid per gallon. Boil 2 minutes and drain. To make minced clams, grind clams with a meat grinder or food processor. Fill jars loosely with pieces, leaving 1-inch headspace and add hot clam juice and boiling water if needed, leaving 1-inch headspace. Adjust jar lids.
Process at 11 pounds pressure, half-pints 60 minutes and pints 70 minutes. For processing above 2,000 feet altitude, see page 43 for recommended pounds of pressure.
CRAB
Keep live crabs on ice until ready to can. Wash crabs thoroughly. Place crabs in water containing 1/4 cup lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of salt per gallon. Simmer 20 minutes. Cool in cold water and drain. Remove back shell and then remove meat from body and claws. Soak meat 2 minutes in cold water containing 2 cups lemon juice or 4 cups of white vinegar and 2 tablespoons of salt per gallon. Drain and remove excess moisture. Pack loosely into clean, hot Mason jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add 1/2 teaspoon citric acid or 2 tablespoons lemon juice to each half-pint jar; 1 teaspoon citric acid or 4 tablespoons lemon juice per pint jar. Add hot water, leaving 1-inch headspace. Adjust jar lids.
Process at 11 pounds pressure, half-pints 70 minutes and pints 80 minutes. For processing above 2,000 feet altitude, see page 43 for recommended pounds of pressure.
FISH-GENERAL METHOD
For all fish except tuna. Clean fish thoroughly; filet large fish or leave small pan fish whole. Cut into container length pieces. Add 1/2 teaspoon canning salt to each pint jar, if desired. Pack with skin side of fish to the outside of the Mason jar, leaving 1-inch headspace. DO NOT ADD LIQUID. Adjust jar lids.
Process at 11 pounds pressure, pints 100 minutes. For processing above 2,000 feet altitude, see page 43 for recommended pounds of pressure.
TUNA
Clean fish thoroughly. Place fish belly side down on a rack in the bottom of a large baking pan. Precook fish at 350°F for 1 hour. Re-frigerate cooked fish overnight to firm the meat. Remove skin and backbone; cut meat in pieces 1 inch shorter than Mason jars. Add 1/2 teaspoon canning salt to each pint jar, if desired. Pack jars solidly with tuna. Fill jars with hot vegetable oil or boiling water, leaving 1-inch headspace. Adjust jar lids.
Process at 11 pounds pressure, half-pints and pints 100 minutes. For processing above 2,000 feet altitude, see page 43 for recommended pounds of pressure.
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(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:21AM (1 child)
It was, [dramatic pause, bony finger points] the Salmon Mousse!
[woman] Oh, Rigel, you didn't use canned salmon, did you?
And it's a parade, with Death himself leading the way.
For you illiterates and Libertariantards with little or no education, the reference is to Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:49AM
As intriguing as it is, I have no intention of making or eating canned fish. Better to stick to the acidic fruit stuff and not accidentally die of botulism.
Lemon-lime curd, that's the ticket.
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