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The Recipe, HACCP & Long Term Memory |
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The Recipe, HACCP & Long Term Memory |
My experience as a consultant and HACCP coordinator to school foodservice has revealed a glaring shortcoming in our present mode of teaching food safety and recipe use in general. I have conducted enough workshops, analyzed enough recipe software, and observed enough food being prepared to come to conclusions that cannot be ignored.
The recipe we use in school foodservice whether it comes from an approved USDA software, our own hard-drives, or we are using the new and improved USDA CD recipes from NFSMI must go beyond ingredients and preparation steps.
If the recipe is not serving as a food safety-training tool it is giving little assurance of its food safety attributes becoming part of long-term memory.
The USDA as well as some approved software has made some token temperature inclusions in their recipes that while necessary, fall short of projecting a total food safety posture. If you have the new CD with USDA recipes go to Oven Fried Chicken. If not go to www.nfsmi.org/, click on new, and bring up the recipe.
Step 5 says: CCP heat to 165 degrees F or higher for 15 seconds.
Step 6 says: Transfer to steam table pans for serving.
CCP: Hold hot for service at 140 degrees F or higher
If you use this type of approach over and over long-term memory will give you the assurance that you will always cook chicken to 165 degrees and you will hold all foods at 140 degrees or higher.
This type of recipe does not speak of sanitation, beginning temperatures, documentation, corrective action, and would fall way short in the reasonable care aspect of preparation.
In order for a recipe to serve as a training tool as well as a preparation tool, there must be statements prompting necessary action that will in time, become part of their long-term memory.
I have done this with all the USDA recipes a well as the CATCH recipes and I am not trying to sell anything; merely alert you to what is needed. Certainly I will share them with you, but eventually some approved recipe software as well as the USDA will have to come to the realization of what is needed.
A closing thought on training, certainly a classroom type training is needed, but it MUST be followed by a lab class in the kitchen actually preparing a recipe according to what should be the districts written prerequisites on preparation.
I have a Power Point presentation that has been used effectively by districts in training this concept.
Contact me at 254-765-3813 or chef11994@sbcglobal.net