tracton@godot.RadOnc.UNC.EDU (Gregg Tracton) (11/12/90)
CROSS-POSTED to sci.bio, rec.food.cooking Thank all of you who wrote for the suggestion of buying saltpeter for my Corned Beef at the pharmacy. They had to back-order it, but eventually it arrived. Cheap, too. I ended up adding it a few hours before the curing ended, which is before boiling the meat for 2-3 hours. The meat was red on the outer inch, and grayish inside of that. It looked a bit like rare roast beef, with the colors reversed. It tasted fine, with no cheesy smell, although Shankar Bhattacharyya warned me about the Botulism chance that I was taking. I got my information from a microbiology book on cured foods, which seemed quite authoritative, but was written a long time ago. ABOUT BOTULISM So I took the chance (!) & ate it, & I'm still alive. I read about the days before saltpeter was used while curing meat, and the techniques seem to be about the same as with saltpeter. I wonder (and I bet that Shankar can answer this), does the Botulism grow during the curing stage or during the storage stage (post-curing)? Can it be killed off by boiling for 2-3 hours? IF Botulism can live in a saline solution which is "strong enough to float an egg" at 40 degrees F, can it also live in a very dilute solution at boiling tempuratures? Where does Botulism usually infect the meat? From the air, from a sick animal, from me? Maybe i should take this discussion to sci.bio? --gregg -- Gregg Tracton Voice:(919)-966-7710 Dept of Radiation Oncology FAX:(919)-966-7681 School of Medicine tracton@godot.radonc.unc.edu Univ of North Carolina {...}mcnc!godot!tracton