# Please explain cooking meat by temperature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 15, 2009, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-cooking-meat-by-temperature/503098 "2009-07-15T11:43:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrandonR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-cooking-meat-by-temperature/503098/21 "2009-07-15T21:30:31Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > In addition, I’ve never found a meat thermometer – electronic or otherwise – that gave a dependable reading. I’ve many a time had it register something wasn’t up to temperature only to cut into it and see it was perfect. Or I’d get it somewhere below the temperature selected only to find it was overcooked. [You haven’t looked hard enough.](http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/tpen_home.html) This is the kind used by health inspectors, chefs, and TV hosts (well, at least Alton Brown uses one). Mine works great. They’re a little pricey, but they consistently give super-fast, accurate readings. This ain’t your grandma’s craptastic dial meat thermometer. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-cooking-meat-by-temperature/503098/22 "2009-07-15T21:35:36Z")
I second the Thermapen. I’ve had one for years, and it is always spot-on. Wouldn’t grill without it. ---
**Author:** ![BrandonR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-cooking-meat-by-temperature/503098/23 "2009-07-15T21:49:15Z")
I’m starting to get probe-envy from their new splashproof model though… Despite the fact that I’ve splashed mine on several occasions and never had any issues (yet). ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-cooking-meat-by-temperature/503098/24 "2009-07-15T23:32:24Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > The correct doneness of the meat is really that vital and its temperature is the best proxy for that. You can’t say “cook the steak to a perfect medium rare” and expect to be helpful and informative in a recipe because readers of a recipe need to know how to do that. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > In addition, I’ve never found a meat thermometer – electronic or otherwise – that gave a dependable reading. I’ve many a time had it register something wasn’t up to temperature only to cut into it and see it was perfect. Or I’d get it somewhere below the temperature selected only to find it was overcooked. The answer to both of these is that the average, untrained person really doesn’t know precisely what terms like “medium rare” or “medium” mean. For professional cooks/chefs, these terms have specific definitions, and those definitions are based on temperature, not look and feel. (Though once you’ve cooked a few thousand steaks, you get a pretty good idea of how “medium rare” etc. should look and feel.) The untrained person tends to base the definitions on how Mom (or some other non-professional cook) did it, and Mom in turn learned it from Grandma, who may have learned it from a cookbook that showed pictures of what different degrees of “doneness” should look like. And who knows how well the color was reproduced in that cookbook, or how faded the pictures became over time. Our local health department stresses the fact that you can’t tell if meat is “done” by just looking at it. This is especially important when cooking things like poultry. The chicken breast might look like it’s done, but if it’s not up to the proper temperature then it’s not safe to serve. If a piece of beef is cooked to the degree you like but the thermometer says it’s not there yet, that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean the thermometer is wrong. It just means that it turns out you like your beef a bit more rare than you thought you did. On a similar note, in my years as a breakfast cook I saw the same thing with eggs. I can’t count the number of people who ordered “over easy” eggs when what they really wanted was “over medium”. This was made obvious by the number of people who ordered “over easy” and then sent them back because the whites weren’t cooked all the way. Well, sorry, runny whites are part of the definition of “over easy”. What your mom called “over easy” is irrelevant. > [@](#): > > I can’t imagine professional chefs running around their kitchens with meat thermometers. As others have already pointed out, yes, yes we do. Except for the running part. Never run in the kitchen, especially when holding a sharp object 😃 > [@JSexton](#): > > Wait, what? I get that meat continues cooking due to residual heat after it comes out of the oven, but I don’t see how the temperature itself would continue to rise after you’ve stopped applying heat to it. Heat always radiates toward a cooler area. So if the outer part of the roast is hotter than the inner part, the heat will continue to move from the hotter part to the cooler part, and the temperature of the inner part will rise accordingly until equilibrium is reached. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-cooking-meat-by-temperature/503098.md?page=1)