Paper Palate

Cooking sous vide may be all the rage across the globe, but New York City health inspectors don’t care; over the past few weeks, they have told chefs to throw out food cooked and stored in the vacuum-sealed packages, they have ordered them to stop using the equipment to produce those packages and they have in some cases, handed out fines which start at $300.00

Why the fuss?

Health inspectors are concerned that anaerobic (capable of living in an oxygen-free environment) bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum and Listeria monocytogenes could thrive in improperly vacuum-packed food and cause a possibly fatal outbreak of foodborne illness. It is worth noting, however, that the use of the sous vide techniques have not been implicated in any such outbreak.

As a result, chefs around the city have been ordered to destroy thousands of dollars worth of food that is, in all likelihood, perfectly safe.

They are not allowed to cook using the sous vide technique until the health department comes up with a set of safety guidelines covering this new technology; the only way to gain an exception to this ruling is if the chef consults with a food scientist and has them draw up a HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) plan for the restaurant’s cooks to follow. Health inspectors hope to have a set of guidelines ready by June.

Many of the chefs affected by this ban have studied sous vide in Europe, among chefs who developed safety protocols for the use of the technology; however, after a New York Times Magazine story on the technique, health inspectors began watching its use in restaurant kitchens more closely.

Even though it is currently under fire in New York City restaurants, sous vide continues to be a culinary trend worth watching. Even home cooks are trying it (Thomas Keller is coming out with a sous vide cookbook soon), though some chefs caution that cooking sous vide is not to be attempted lightly by the amateur.

Shola Olunloyo of Studio Kitchen in Philedelphia noted, “There’s a depth of knowledge required regarding sanitation. The biggest issue is that one of the most dangerous food-borne illnesses, botulism, is an anaerobic bacteria and can survive in a vacuum.”