To ask if you clean your meat?

[Cleopatois]

I use lemon and water or white vinegar and water to clean all my meat.

A colleague said she didn't just through it from pack to pan :O

Her reasoning was 'its free range so that means it clean'.

Another colleague said it is a culture thing. What do you do?

How can you taste the meat if it is so highly seasoned or marinated. Doesn't the meat itself just become a texture as the flavour is actually the seasoning.

Decent meat doesn't need seasoning to make it nice

^^ this

I never wash meat.

Washing meat, if not done very carefully, must result in fine droplets of bacteria laden water being spread around.

And you'd have to decontaminate your whole kitchen to get them all.

But, Presumably the meat-washers on here are doing this under stringent controlled conditions or they wouldn't have survived...

Likewise the non-washing people are still alive which is testament to the fact that cooking kills bacteria.

I don't believe in giving myself yet another chore

Easy to taste the meat.

Good seasoning enhances the taste of the meat.

Not everyone has access to 'decent' meat, or at least they didn't always.
Using herbs and spices to flavour meat comes from days when caribbean people only got the scraps and unwanted parts to cook with, good seasoning can make cheaper meat into a flavoursome meal. Also the issue of hot countries and using marinading as a way of preserving fresh meat.

I have always washed rice since finding a huge great rice moth in a bowl of boil in the bag rice.

also no longer buy the boil in the bag stuff, funnily enough.

I don't believe people just cook meat with no seasoning at all. Not even salt, pepper and herbs?

Some just use more than others, that isn't wrong just because you are happy not to do it.

Ewww.

Mind you a moth would be extra protein.

I think some people get used to highly seasoned food and find it difficult to eat food that tastes "plain" to them. A roast chicken without seasoning is lovely to me but not to someone who is used to seasoned chicken.

Cooking shows always refer to seasoning as salt and pepper. It has a very different meaning in Caribbean cooking.

I have a friend who will eat non spicy food but she has to put pepper sauce on it. (I've stopped being offended!)

Is this the new penis beaker?

I dry meat with kitchen roll if it's wet on the surface & I'm not casseroling it. Otherwise it goes straight in the pan or onto the chopping board for chopping. Any bloody juices in the wrappings are given to the lucky cats, along with any sinewy trimmings

So on top of the cost of meat, there are some people who also spend money on vinegar, limes, lemons for washing it, extra kitchen roll for drying it and bleach for cleaning the kitchen sink afterwards. I am saving a fortune by not washing meat!

No I do not. Only meat I used to wash was a whole chicken until I saw somewhere that it's safer not to wash it as the bacteria goes everywhere but didn't realise people washed other meats too. I just bung it in!

Did Cleopatois ever come back?

I really did want to know why Butcher's Shop meat was dirtier than Supermarket meat.

re the issue of no seasoning vs seasoning.....

Ethnic minorities (or black people in particular) do not and never have regarded British culinary skills as sophisticated!

Clearly with the comments about over seasoning and being able to enjoy the taste of decent meat without any seasoning whatsoever, this works both ways.

Its just cultural differences and my pallet has been adjusted accordingly meaning I'll probably never enjoy unseasoned food like most British would probably call the seasoning of mine spicy or whatever.

A large (if not larger) proportion of the world wash their meat and always have. We are still here so its probably not the biggest deal if we carry in doing it, just like you are free not to. And it seems to me the only argument against doing so is splashing juices everywhere! I think its insulting to assume people don't know how to clean their kitchens and you will find that a lot of these skills were bought to Britain not so long ago.

I for one would find it very difficult to throw a load of blood in my pan (worth mentioning that for generations most ethnic minorities have also bought HALAL meat and/or from MARKETS).

This thread is quite simply because of arrogance around what we each practice vs others.

Look here for a different perspective.
eatstreetblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/p9122265.jpg

Sorry no link. On phone!

I didn't mean it was unsophisticated I was just trying to draw attention to the fact that judgements work both ways and practices that we each employ are because of multiple reasons. Heat, buying habits etc. Simply understanding this makes understanding meat washing and seasoning un 'weird' or 'crazy' as many have commented. Similarly it makes perfect sense that a packet of chicken breast fillet doesn't necessarily need washing! I draw the line at chicken with skin on it though though! The slime under the skin!!!!

And I am aware that most British under 40's have a relatively mixed pallet as do I being British born and raised, but I just wouldn't enjoy in seasoned meat (in fact most food) and because if what I have been made accustomed to, don't actually see the point. I'm not actually saying this is a good thing either!

I don't think identifying that if you only ever eat spiced meat, you're unlikely to enjoy it unspiced equates to saying people who fall into that category are culinarily unsophisticated

^ This absolutely. It's quite insulting actually. I like meat spiced or unspiced, depends what I'm eating. Eating non spiced food doesn't mean you've got an unrefined palate. Infact maybe the opposite, if you like both.

Episode, your point re a large proportion of the world washing their meat and "we are still here so it's probably not the biggest deal if we carry on doing it". I'm afraid this spectacularly misses the point of what the food hygienists on the thread have been saying, that is is a big deal.

stats for campylobacter infections, including deaths. Most related to poultry. I think 460,000 cases of food poisoning related to just this one organism alone is actually a big deal.
This has nothing to do with cultural differences. It's to do with science and how disease is spread.
If the scientists are saying 'don't wash your meat, it increases your risk of getting ill' why not just, I dunno, not wash your meat. It's reducing the amount of work you have to do, rather than increasing it (washing meat and then thoroughly sterilising your kitchen).

Some of the comments on this thread are very sneery. The way I see meat washing is like a foreign delicacy. If you ever travelled and had that moment where they tell you duck tongue or camel testicle is the local delight you must try, and your busy trying to explain you don't fancy it. Rationally there is no reason why we shouldn't eat those foods but they turn our national stomach and most would say it feels wrong, there isn't a valid reason. In the same way that rationally there is no need to wash meat but it just feels wrong not to for some people. There is no need to be so dismissive of others cultural practices. Being curious, noting differences and a bit of banter is fine but when it comes across as belittling I think it extremely unpleasant.

According to DH, a Jamaican, washing meat and seasoning (which is what a lot of people will know as jerk) originated in Jamaica when your average joe couldn't get decent fresh meat.

The thing is that MIL/FIL and now DH are raised on strongly saddened meat. DH had never eaten a piece of plain meat until he moved to this country and had school dinners aged 15. Most chefs recognise how even light seasoning such as rosemary on a joint of lamb improves flavour and texture.

If the scientists are saying 'don't wash your meat, it increases your risk of getting ill' why not just, I dunno, not wash your meat

Because the proof is in the chicken pudding.

If people are washing their meat and not getting sick, why would they stop because a scientist told them to?

It clearly isn't a big deal.

@ Amberleaf
That was a good one!

Slobber, admittedly I don't know anything about this area but your link says campylobacter us found in red meat, unpasteurised milk and untreated water. I didn't consider that to mean poultry.

I don't pay any attention to the warnings on this kind of thing as meat washing is a practice my great, great grandparents and every following generation has done so for me its the norm. DH's family are the same. We don't gave illness as a result so I don't feel concern.