[redace1960]

i've read and heard so many different opinions on whether or not to mix these two ingredients, raw and cooked. i have a recipe for sausage that calls for the two meats to be ground together in the raw state. the result is heaven, and i take obsessively good care to bleach and scald my equipment. am i risking some dire affliction irregardless?

[Suzanne]

The only dire consequences will be if you don't let us in on the recipe! (If it's online, post a link; if it's only in print, just tell us where to find it -- PLEASE don't post it if it's copyrighted )

The most important considerations are keeping everything cold as you work with it, keeping everything clean before and after, and starting out with the cleanest possible ingredients. These days, there is little chance of getting sick from pork as in the olden days. And if you use really good (that is, organically-raised) chicken, there's much less chance of salmonella. AND, if you take careful precautions with cleaning your equipment -- as you say you do -- then there really shouldn't be a problem.

[MarkV]

Redrace:

Just out of curiosity, what were the specific objections that you've encountered about combining pork & chicken?

Mark

[KeeperOfTheGood]

Hey oh

I'd not worry too much about copyrite. Easely 99.999% of recipes are not covered (which is what the copyrite office has to say on the issue). Only recipes that are not presented as recipes will generally be concidered protected. In other words, in the middle of a novel, in line with the text of the novel, a recipe given would be covered, recipes in recipe books are not, unless the preponderance of the book is not about the recipes ( for instance, my journey through the middle east, and the foods I ate. Since the focus is the story and the recipes are only assists to telling the story, then they would be covered). Magazene recipes are not covered if they are in a recipe section, but would be if the magazen does not. So, go ahead and type us up the instruction list. Took a lot of reading on US copyrite to get all that, and there are still sections and aspects that are hard to fathome.

As to working with sausage, it isn't just the cleanlyness. Boiling and dry baking your equipment help, yes, but if your air is not hepa filtered with 0% humidity, that lasts only for a short time. Also, if there is any debree of any kind on any of you equipment, no amount of bleech will sterilise it.

So, the general advise is that any sterilising of equipment should be performen immediatly befor using that equipment. Also, as you are grinding the food product and mixing all that surface in on itself, and increasing that surface are immensly, and by the mechaical action of friction heating your product as you are working it, internal temps need to be kept as cold as external temps. The best way is to add to 5 pounds of meat a cup of crushed ice or bar ice. This will keep the internal temps down, and help to keep the equipment cold.

The third is time. Start to finnish, make your sausage filling in one hour, and then fill your casings in one hour. This is a two step event. Many sausage procedures have the mix, the rest time, then the stuffing. The rest is done in the cooler, so the important times are the grind time and the stuffing time.

[Mezzaluna]

KOTG, we're sticklers about copyright around here. At Chef Talk, we tell our members to respect copyrights for articles, recipes, graphics, etc. Just ask Nicko!

[KeeperOfTheGood]

Hey oh

Ok, being educational, and not confrontational Maybe this information should also be stickied as I know it has come up before, and I even have asked about it. I had to do a lot of reading on this issue a few weeks back and most of it is still fresh in my head lol.

http://www.copyright.gov/

I won't dissagree about not respecting copyright. It is that the copyright office itself does not assert those rights to recipes except with conditions.

Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

There are extencive articles on the issue on the web site there. They are an interesting read, and do go on to say that it is actually a rare thing for copyright to be applied to cookbooks. The actual acceptance of the application for copyright is a discretionary decision by the copyright office. This is covered by the final parragraphing of that instructional page.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to names, titles, short phrases, ideas, systems or methods.

It is a grey area of law, and if in doubt, sure, don't infringe. I do art other than the art of cooking as well, and I am very sensitive to people making unauthorised use of my works.

[Pete]

Mixing chicken and pork is not an issue when done so diliberately, as in the sausage you are making. I think people, you are refering to, are getting this confused with cross contamination, where one food is contaminated by another food due to poor sanitation practices.

[redace1960]

markv- these are things i've heard over the years from people-mostly older-who butcher their own meat and make their own sausage and etc. same goes, supposedly, for mixing non-poultry game and chicken too:
-theres some kind of bacteria in both meats that produce a substance when combined makes some kind of really powerful food poisoning.
-ditto the mystery substance, but present in the meats themselves 'because what the animals eat doesn't mix.'. hey, i aint making this up.
-either a or b, but it infects the surface of the cutting board and equipment, and its resistant to disinfection
-this substance is actually a worm, and it will infest your vital organs and eventually kill you. (anyone feeling hungry?)
-just the combining of both meats 'poisons' the system.
-reading just states the cross-contamination warnings to various degrees of eek-ness, although i have seen the don't mix meats in the stomach in a very old cookbook (receipts and good advice for the new bride 1892)

pete- i agree. i've always figured it was crapola, but that one time of the year when i put things up it starts to bug me again.

recipe folks-this is a word of mouth recipe so theres no copyright stuff. 2 parts pork, fat trimmed, to 1 part chicken, white meat, skinned and trimmed...salt, pepper and raw onion to taste, mild chili pepper or paprika to excess. and i mean EXCESS. (white vinegar and 1 small boiled potato, skinned and ground well with the meat if you're packing it in skins.) i use this as a loosemeat and freeze it. what makes it good, though, is the mixture of the chicken and pork. you can leave everything else out ; its just purely delicious.

[Pete]

Redace, I have heard some of these things also, but I think they are old wives tales. I just went through one of my sanitation books, and couldn't find anything relating to this subject, nor could I find any food borne pathogens like what you have described. I, personally, think it is a whole lot of bunk.

[Mangilao30]

For a zillions years, pork and chicken have been mixed by Chinese folks like myself to make the most sumptuous dumplings, the pork is rich and fatty while the chicken is firm and more subtle. It is a great combination. Add a few drops of soy, sesame oil, chili oil, scallions and you have a great filling for potstickers or dumplings, if really brave add a few chopped garlic chives.

For the best lumpia, aka fried egg rolls, you have to add pork and crab meat, this is very authentic not to mention delicious. The rest of ingredients are wood ears chopped, shredded carrots, mung bean thread, onion chopped, ground pork, crab meat, and seasonings. Roll up in a lumpia wrapper and fry until golden. Eat with the lumpia wrapped in lettuce leaves and dipped in nuoc nam. I've never gotten sick from any combinations of meats. Hope that helps.

[MarkV]

I don't know the intracacies of the copyright law but in terms of the plageurism issue, I was taught in food journalism classes I attended that you couldn't reproduce someone else's recipe in your own article, book, etc., no matter where published unless you make at least 2 changes to the recipe. Of course if you credit the source it's all a moot point.

Ixnay on those mixing pork & chicken rules. That's a bunch of post-digested bovine matter.

Mangilao30: Good point on the use of chicken & pork in traditional Chinese cooking and your dumpling recipe sounds yummy. My girlfriend is Chinese and a good cook. I'll show her your post.

Mark

[MarkV]

AN AFTERTHTHOUGHT FOR SUZANNE:

Suzanne:

Is it OK to post a copyrighted recipe here IF you credit the source????

Mark

[redace1960]

thank you everyone!
(mangilao makes an excellent point in particular, by the way.) i was able to use all your info in rebuttal of a lady i was talking to in the garden a couple of days ago who was also sausaging off and insisted that pork and chicken was 'just not safe.' way to go, folks!