zxcvbob wrote:
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
>> I'm making a curry for my father's 85th birthday party tomorrow. Not
>> that that's particularly relevant to the post, but still...
>>
>> My sister works for a food retailer and is consequently paranoid about
>> various matters related to food - as, of course, any good food
>> retailer must be. I'm not sure that quite the same level of paranoia
>> is required at home though.
>>
>> My sister is of the opinion that it would be dangerous to re-heat the
>> curry tomorrow morning, then travel over to her house (a twenty minute
>> drive) and then heat it again for serving. She's afraid that everybody
>> will be poisoned if this happens. According to her re-heating the food
>> twice will be much more dangerous than re-heating it twice.
>>
>> She might be right, but I'm interested to know exactly what the
>> mechanism is. If I heat food to boiling point then only bacteria that
>> survive at higher temparatures will survive, during the cooling period
>> it may indeed be re-colonised, by bacteria from the air but again this
>> would be killed by re-heating to boiling (and keeping it there for a
>> few minutes, of course).
>>
>> I can see that it is wise usually to keep food refridgerated and only
>> heat that which is required shortly before the meal, and I'm not
>> advocating re-heating the same curry many times over several days.
>> However, I am interested to know just how big the danger of food
>> poisoning would be from two re-headings tomorrow relative to only one.
>> Would it truly create a danger of poisoning or is it paranoid to worry
>> about it?
>>
>> If there's an URL describing bacterial growth and re-heating food
>> showing research results I'd be delighted to read that.
>>
>
> Your sister is a nut.
>
> But... Why don't you take the curry over there cold? That will make
> her happy, and it will be less work for you.
>
That is exactly what I am going to do. My question isn't a request to
enable me to change my plans, but to satisfy my curiosity.


--
When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must
all turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my
honour has lain bleeding this half hour--I stop it, by pulling off one
of my yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the
opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it-- -
Tristam Shandy Chapter 4.LXXXIV.Laurence Sterne
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