FRIDAY FOOD THING
So I buy this new INSTANT READ cooking thermometer — a 21st Century must-have improvement! — on whose clever, pocket-clipon-case is plainly printed:
140 degrees – Cooked Ham
160 degrees – Ham, Beef Medium, Ground Beef
170 degrees – Veal, Lamb, Pork, Beef, well-done
180 degrees – Poultry
Curious, I pull out my old standby cooking thermometer (the one that remains stuck in the roast):
140 degrees – Smoked Ham, Beef, rare
160 degrees - Beef, medium, Ham
170 degrees - Beef, well
180 degrees – Lamb
190 degrees – Poultry
Uh, oh. Ten degrees of separation in the “Poultry” setting — a loosening of poultry standards? I begin to wonder. I check the Internet and discover that poultry internal cooking temperature should be 165 degrees. What to do?
I take the new, fancy, INSTANT READ thermometer into my hallway where a very accurate wall thermometer is mounted right next to my thermostat. Both the wall-mounted thermometer and the thermostat’s internal thermometer are reading exactly 65 degrees. Dead on. Unfortunately, my new INSTANT READ clipon thermometer says: 75 degrees. A ten degree difference…
Confucius says: “Man with two watches never knows what time it is.”
