04 Safety and Sanitation:
Weeks 1-2

Sunday, October 31, 2004

After our exhilarating and somewhat intimidating first day, school quickly settles into a routine. During the first two weeks, the first part of our 5 hour school day is taken up with Safety and Sanitation, a mandatory course for just about every culinary student in the United States. The class follows the curriculum prescribed by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation in their 15-chapter ServSafe coursebook, and culminates in a standardized test that’s taken by all culinary professionals across the country. To earn our ServSafe certificate, we must receive a score of 70% or higher on the test. All restaurants in the country must have at least one ServSafe-certified employee on staff at all times, so it behooves us all to earn our certificates in order to gain an edge in applying for work.

Because of the short duration of the class, Chef Steve moves briskly through the text book during his lectures, typically covering 3-4 chapters a night. Although his voice can drone on a bit at times, Chef Steve often launches into parenthetical stories about his career in the food industry that are far more interesting than the curriculum we’re supposed to be studying. Many of these stories revolve around dealing with health inspections at a nursing home where he worked as executive chef. The health regulations for nursing homes are even more stringent than what you’d find at a typical restaurant because the elderly population poses a higher risk of getting sick from contaminated food than those who are younger.

The heart of the ServSafe curriculum consists of learning about the bacteria, parasites and viruses that can infect our food, and the ways that we can safely prevent those microorganisms from causing a foodborne-illness outbreak. There are three primary factors that require control:

• Cross-contamination (when microorganisms are transferred from one food or surface to another)

• Poor personal hygiene (when food workers fail to wash their hands)

• Time-temperature abuse (when potentially hazardous foods are left in the “danger zone” of 41-135°F for more than four hours, allowing bacteria to quickly grow and multiply)

Of these three, learning about time-temperature abuse was most eye-opening. To avoid it, you must quickly pass foods through the danger zone while not inadvertently endangering any other foods.

For example, if you make a hot pot of soup or stock and wish to store it in the refrigerator or freezer, you should first cool it down to 70°F. If you place it in the refrigerator while it’s hotter, the residual heat of the soup could warm up neighboring foods to above 41°F for several hours, leaving them susceptible to bacteria growth. Likewise, hot soup placed in the freezer could cause frozen foods to thaw, creating another hazard.

The best way to quickly cool large pots of stock before placing them in the refrigerator or freezer is to separate them into several smaller metal vessels and place them in an ice water bath. Although it’s extra work, it doesn’t take as long to cool the stock as you might expect. Our class can properly cool the contents of a hot, 60-gallon stock pot within 20-30 minutes. At home I can do the same thing in my sink with a hodge-podge collection of bowls, pots and pans, and a handful of ice from the freezer.

As part of our Safety and Sanitation grade, everyone in the class is required to give a 3-5 minute oral presentation on a topic related to the class. This assignment paralyzes many of the students – the normally confident and gregarious Richard Blue (the dread-locked 30-something Las Vegas transplant) does little more during his presentation than read from his cards, while the erstwhile Diane, the sweet blonde woman from Illinois, grows beet red at the thought that she might have to go next.

Watching a stressed-out student give an oral report is almost as stressful as giving the report myself – during my talk on food irradiation, I forget at least 30% of what I’d planned to say, and have no memory of how I got from my introductory sentence to my conclusion. I’m just glad to get it over with on the first day of presentations.

Many students choose to report on a particular foodborne illness or pathogen. Since most have similar gastro-intestinal symptoms, such as diarrhea, nausea, and cramping, the report givers like to talk about what makes their disease unique. Marty, a jolly twenty-something who works as a plumber during the day, gleefully told me about his topic, scombroid toxin. “Your whole body can turn bright red if you eat any fish that have been infected! You get hives all over your body!” Others simply resort to especially descriptive potty humor during their presentations, always good for a few titters from the class.

Mia, a recently married physical trainer from the East Bay who hopes to open a catering business someday, gives one of the most impressive presentations in the class. She opens her talk on food packaging techniques with a bright smile and a loud, “Are you guys psyched?!”, making me wonder if she sees us as a group of overweight participants in one of her Club One classes. She’s brought in examples of the different types of packaging that are commonly in use today – a bag of spinach where all the air has been replaced by less-reactive carbon dioxide and nitrogen, a vacuum-packed wedge of bacon, and a box of lean cuisine which contains partially cooked and chilled food in a vacuum-packed container (a preparation called “sous vide”). She keeps us engaged, and gets a resounding round of applause when she finishes. Because the rest of us have to give an oral report ourselves, we’re very appreciative when we see someone else in the class do it well.

By the end of the two week class, we’ve covered everything from the proper temperature to cook pork (145°F for at least 15 seconds), to the purpose of grease traps (to prevent drain blockage), to the signs of severe cockroach infestation (if you see a single cockroach in daylight you have a major infestation – only the weakest roaches come out in the light). After a flurry of last minute studying and a dash to Walgreen’s by Marty and Tanya to get #2 pencils for the class, we take our test and correct them with the key minutes after finishing.

I’m pleased with my test results – my score earns me an A+ in the class, with honors. I feel gratified and incredibly cocky – the format of the class and tests fit in with my strengths as a student, and I wonder if I should make it a goal to earn honors in every class at the CCA. However, just as you can’t tell the winner of a horse race by who’s leading at the first turn, I know there’s a lot more to cooking school than Safety and Sanitation class. The real challenges will occur in the kitchen – a place where creativity and artistry are far more important than how well someone has studied. I may have kicked butt at this class, but I know that filling out a scan-tron has little to do with how well one will do in the kitchen.

Next: 05 Basic Skills Pt. 1 -- Weeks 1-3
Last: 03 Into the Fire -- My First Day at the CCA

If you see a single cockroach in daylight you have a major infestation – only the weakest roaches come out in the light.