Washington - Thanksgiving preparations have you frazzled? It could be worse. You could be dealing with everybody else's problems. That's what the staff of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hotline does all the time. It gets to answer questions like this:
Is it okay to defrost a turkey in the toilet?
Feel better?
Helping people feel better--and cook safely--has been the objective of the Meat and Poultry Hotline since its inception in 1985. The USDA had been getting more and more calls about safe food handling, and so the idea for an 800 number was hatched. A pilot program proved successful, and the rest, as they say, is hot line history.
Today, the Meat and Poultry Hotline gets more than 130,000 calls annually, up from 28,000 in its first year. Not surprisingly, a large chunk of these calls pour in during the weeks before Thanksgiving, when the hot line's 10 staffers act as hand-holders to the nation's avian-challenged cooks. How do I thaw a turkey? How do I stuff a turkey? How do I mail a turkey? Can I eat the turkey that was defrosted in the attic? Can I serve the turkey I ran over with the car?
Hot line specialists have heard them all--and plenty more. "We do get the full-moon effect," says Mary Wenberg.
So who are these kitchen confidantes, perhaps our most up-close-and- personal civil servants? And why, as staffer Marilyn Johnston put it, do callers "so often say that they don't trust the government, but they trust us?"
TIME FOR TURKEY TRAINING
It's a morning in early November, and the staff of the hot line--all women, mostly home economists--are seated around a big conference table in the USDA's South Agriculture Building, a mammoth government office that stretches along Independence Avenue SW like a movie star's limousine.
But there's nothing glitzy about these women. They're a fiftyish crowd, with a couple younger and a couple older, and they're a tidy-looking group, wearing blazers and small gold earrings. Talbots types. Women who buy their daughters and friends digital meat thermometers for Christmas. They have pleasant, reassuring voices that make strangers tell all. It's no wonder people call them instead of their own mothers.
This morning the staff has gathered to discuss this year's turkey season. The first subject on the agenda: the "fresh" label.
"It seems like we've been talking about 'fresh' forever," says team leader Diane VanLonkhuyzen. "And we have."
This, VanLonkhuyzen goes on to explain, will be the first Thanksgiving that the "fresh" label will apply to turkeys. Regulations that went into effect at the end of 1997 stipulate that for a bird to be labeled "fresh," it must never have reached an internal temperature below 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Frozen birds must have an internal temperature below zero. As for birds with a temperature between zero and 26 degrees, they don't have an official name, VanLonkhuyzen explains.
"Is there something cute we can call that zone in between?" asks one woman, and the group laughs. There are no suggestions.
The next subjects on the agenda--the color of poultry and safe handling of takeout meals--are dealt with by referring the staff to the brochures in their packets. The women do far more than just talk on the phone; they also write brochures and backgrounders, which are disseminated to the media, the public and anyone else who needs food-safety information. And for easy reference, the hot line staffers keep them all at their desks, which also means that callers are likely to receive consistent answers, no matter which "technical information specialist" they get. Everyone has her own turkey manual, for example, which contains answers to practically every question ever asked (How many feathers does the average turkey have? 3,500. How many bones? 200).
"Hock Locks and Other Accoutrements" is the catchy title of one backgrounder, and the next topic at the conference table. The hock lock is the nylon or metal contraption that secures the hind legs of a chicken or turkey. Leave it on or take it off? The backgrounder says it's safe to leave it on during roasting, but it's more difficult to get a bird done evenly if the legs are locked together.
As for accouterments, remember that the pop-up timer indicates doneness. Hot line specialist CiCi Williamson reminds the group of one woman who called to say that she had pulled out the timer because she didn't want the turkey to self-baste.
STUFF ABOUT STUFFING
Store-bought, prepared refrigerated stuffings generate the most discussion--and also illustrate the conservative philosophy of the hot line.
VanLonkhuyzen says she has seen these products at local supermarkets and is concerned about them. The hot line always recommends that when preparing stuffing at home, consumers combine the wet and dry ingredients at the very last minute. That's because, when uncooked, the carbohydrate mixture plus the moisture can create a prime breeding ground for bacteria if it's stored for too long at improper temperatures. These products are already mixed.
Without knowing the specific ingredients or preparation of the commercial stuffings, and without having any information from the supermarkets concerning their safety, Priscilla Levine, a USDA microbiologist and hot line consultant, says that she "doesn't trust" them and that she has "no qualms" about telling people not to buy them. "We're conservative, but we must come down on the side of consumers," Levine says to the group.
(David Richman, vice president of quality assurance for Giant Food, one of the stores that sell the products, later says that the USDA's advice "sounds a little overboard" and that the prepared stuffings "are no different from any other item that's fully cooked" that Giant sells in its refrigerated cases.
(When told that Giant's stuffing is fully cooked, VanLonkhuyzen said that would be "okay," and added "we need to get a lot more information on the products.")
The conservatism of the hot line has both its fans and detractors: Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for a consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, believes the hot line "needs to exercise all due care," given the varied ways people cook and the varied risks for different populations. Some chefs and "foodies" believe the USDA is overly cautious and lacks savvy when it comes to cooking. "Never a bastion of culinary taste, the USDA declares that 140 degrees Fahrenheit is rare, but no self-respecting chef of our acquaintance would ever offer anybody the light pink steak you get at 140 degrees and make that claim," write Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly in their new book, "The Complete Meat Cookbook" (Houghton Mifflin, $35). Even Jean Schnelle, director of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, has observed that the USDA "tends to be somewhat more conservative on a few points" than Butterball.
Meanwhile, back at the meeting, Dan Glickman, apparently the only Secretary of Agriculture to pay any attention to the hot line, stops by to offer his support to the underappreciated group. "I can't think of anything we do that affects people's lives so immediately," he tells them.
Like telling them how to reheat a smoked turkey.
HOME OF THE HOT LINE
"Take off the wings. Take the meat off the bones. Cover the dish you have it in to keep it moist," says home economist Sara Beck, answering a caller's question about how to reheat an already cooked and smoked whole turkey. The gist of the answer: Break it down and reheat it until it reaches 165 degrees.
Beck, a chatty woman wearing a headset, is sitting at a computer in a cubicle of the hot line's office. It's a nondescript room, but someone always brightens things up by bringing in food: Today there are peanut M&M's and cake.
As she answers the question, Beck notes the nature of the call, then asks where the caller is from and how she heard about the hot line.
Beck, who's been answering calls since 1990, is finding that Americans are more aware of food safety at the same time that they know less about cooking.
Williamson agrees. People are "definitely getting more savvy on the issues, but when it comes to freezing and refrigerating, they don't have a clue," she says. There's a whole generation of moms who don't cook anymore, and therefore kids who haven't learned from them.
Most callers are very grateful for the advice they get from their government moms, who are far more forgiving than a 1040 form. People have said, "We don't know what we'd do without you," says hot line specialist Katherine Bernard. For in an age of recordings and voice mail and the Internet, people still seem to gravitate toward the human response. Bernard says callers will sometimes greet her with surprise: "Oh! I got a live person!" they will exclaim. "Yea!"
Real people can be reached at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hotline from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving day. Recorded food-safety messages are available at all other times. Call 1-800-535-4555 or, within the District, 202-720-3333. Food-safety information is also available at the USDA's Web site, www.fsis.usda.gov.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
P.O. Box 553
Northport, NY 11768
Phone: 631-757-4010
Fax: 631-757-4060
E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com
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