Putting this in Cafe Society since it’s about food.
A couple years ago, the USDA lowered the recommended temperature for cooked (non-ground) pork:
(bolding mine)
In other words, improvements in pig farming and processing have effectively eliminated/reduced the microbial reasons we used to have to cook pork “well done”.
Unfortunately, it seems a large part of the population still hasn’t gotten the word on this. This is unfortunate when you’re a cook like me who cooks for large groups in banquet/convention situations. You spend all day working on a wonderful pork dish for a buffet for over 100 people, and then one person ruins everything by freaking out over the color of the meat. Now everybody’s wondering if they’ve just been poisoned
A lot of today’s pork is so lean that it can’t be cooked to 160 without drying it out. A modern pork chop cooked to 145 is still somewhat juicy, and even if it’s a little pink inside it has a cooked texture. I don’t know that I’d want to eat a pork chop that had been cooked only to, say, 120 (like a medium-rare steak), although I think it would be safe as long as the outside had been cooked thoroughly.
BTW, for those more familiar with the Celsius scale:
It wasn’t just bacteria, it was parasites like trichinosis.
I’ve gotten the word, but early indoctrination was pretty thorough in my case. Pork is the only meat I’ll insist on being well done. Sorry, I find pink pork nauseating.
Although I’m not fond of pork anyway (exceptions being ham and bacon, which I eat in small quantities). But I’m inclined simply to pass it up and not make a fuss over it.
Yeah, that’s the thing about many cuts of pork-- they are not as forgiving as beef if you overcook them a bit. Pork cooked just right is delicious. A few minutes too long and it’s little better than cardboard. Think pink!
It’s not called the other white meat for nothing (that is, dark chicken meat, too, can be more overcooked than white and still taste good).
I’ve been on board with this, but pork loin and chops are my least favorite portions of the beast, so it’s a bit N/A as I most enjoy NC-style pulled pork shoulder slooooooooowly smoked up to 195 F internal temperature and bacon with a good scrunch to it.
When did the USDA first recommend this? I have cooked pork this way since at least the 90s. My turn of the century The Complete Meat Cookbook suggests that 150-155 is best and 160-165 is “juicy enough to eat, although not ideal.”
Although looking at the doneness chart at the front of the book they say the USDA guideline was 170 at that time.
You could make a couple little cards for the buffet line, saying the pork may have some color, and that this is consistent with new recommendations based on modern farming and food processing, quoting (and citing) a Dept of Ag publication. Sure, someone will still freak out, but the other 99 people can realize they don’t have to.
It really does depend on the cut, for me. A roasted pork loin, oven or grill, is very nice when cooked pink. The meat structure is fine grained, and solid, so that’s OK. But a pork shoulder, if the bit surrounding the bones is bloody like a rare beef steak – well, I double check the temperature, and I do eat it if its OK, but pork of that texture, of that condition, bloody – no, that doesn’t really work. But I may have been conditioned by years of well done pork.
But directly to the O.P., if you’re cooking a pot luck, then yeah, you have to expect old fogies will insist on well done pork. Pretty much, well done everything, is the norm, for potlucks, right?
Well done juicy pork is very easily achieved. There are two secrets: brining in advance for maybe two days really hydrates the meat fibers. It can be well done, and still very juicy. I fact, it can be overdone and tasteless, and still juicy, if brined.
If you’re grilling with indirect heat, and you put pots of water over the direct heat, adjacent to the pork, and maybe another pot of water beneath the roast (better, put some moist food, like potatoes or rice to catch the pork drippings) the steam will also insure very moist meat.
Brine for 8 hours and indirectly grill. Direct grilling after a brine doesn’t work as well for me as the brown sugar tends to burn instead of caramelize. Injecting marinades can work too, but they’re inferior to brining in my experience.
Chicken should still be well-cooked, as samonella is a significant problem in poultry processing. (It was minor until the deregulation of the Reagan era, I have been told, and now infests the entire industry, probably ineradicably.)
But trich is a long-gone disease. I recall reading that there hasn’t been a case of trichinosis from commercially produced meat since the early 1970s, and it was rare in the decade before that. All confirmed cases of trich infestation in humans has come from eating wild game, especially boar and bear. I still prefer pork a little on the done side, but I might start experimenting with a bit of pinkness.
Yeah, you can do it with brining, but I find that you do have to pay close attention to the temp. I pull my loin at around 140, but for those who are still freaked out by a bit of pink in their pork, I pull it at 155 or so, and let the carryover take it to 160-ish. It will be cooked through, but still pretty juicy. It’s only once you start getting into the 170s that it really starts to dry out.
Honestly, with lean pieces of meat like this, I haven’t noticed any difference in interior juiciness between cooking in a dry or a wet environment.
