Paddle Meals: Food Safety Scenarios

April-May 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Deb Leach

Just cut the mold off the cheddar. Just touch raw shellfish to your lips to see if they tingle. Is this good advice or harmful folklore? Suffering from food poisoning on a remote beach is no fun—that’s why kayak guides take food handling courses. Here are four rules for food safety.

Keep hot food hot and cold food cold.

Here in the Arctic, as I carve shards of frozen flesh off an Arctic char or caribou haunch, I smirk at the ‘cold food cold’ rule. Out paddling, what’s your cold source? Freezing the food, frozen gel packs, ice? The ‘Danger Zone’ between 4-60°C or 40-140°F is where bacteria multiply rapidly (especially in meat, fish, poultry, eggs and dairy), reaching dangerous levels within 2 hours.

Keep everything clean.

Hand sanitizer gels make sense when soap and water aren’t handy. To sanitize food contact sources (cutting boards and knives) after you wash them, bring a spray bottle filled with a solution of 1 teaspoon of 6% bleach to one litre of water. Wash fruits and vegetables. Even if you peel them, the knife could spread surface dirt and bacteria.

If in doubt, throw it out.

It is OK to cut mold off hard cheeses, hard fruits and vegetables (apples, potatoes, onions). Be sure to cut at least 1” past the fuzzy, green stuff since the mold roots run deep. Rinse the cheese and add a splash of vinegar to its new storage container; then sanitize the knife. But mold on grain products is not safe—throw out moldy bread or muffins. Toss out moldy soft fruit like grapes, berries, melons and peaches. Discard moldy soft cheese, yogurt, meat, peanuts, peanut butter or leftovers.

Be sure shellfish is safe.

Paralytic Shellfish Poison can be present in large amounts even if the water looks clear. Poisonous shellfish doesn’t taste any different and it may take an hour or two for the muscles of your chest and abdomen to become paralyzed. How far is the nearest mechanical respirator and oxygen? Check with the marine biotoxin/shellfish hotline or website before sampling clams, mussels, oysters, geoducks or scallops.

S’MORE SHOOTERS

for 4 around the campfire, thanks to the Surreal Gourmet for the inspiration!

3 ½ cups milk

½ cup heavy or whipping cream

1½ cups milk chocolate cut into shards in a large measuring cup or bowl

¼ cup graham wafer crumbs in a bowl

4-8 jumbo marshmallows

almond liqueur

Mix the milk and cream in a saucepan. Dip the rims of 4 mugs into the milky mixture ¼” deep. Plunge the rims into the crumb mixture. Keep the other campers busy toasting the marshmallows. Heat the milk mixture until it starts to steam. Pour enough milk/cream over the chocolate to swirl around and melt it while stirring the mixture. Add the chocolate sludge back into the cooking pot. Heat through and pour into mugs with the ‘mallows. Add a splash of liqueur. Grown-up s’mores!

(Have the milk and cream been in a cooler or barely thawed from frozen, or did you use powdered or UHT milk and canned cream? Heating the milk and adding alcohol are both good!)