The other day a topic popped up on my favorite BBQ message board about undercooked hamburgers. If you don’t want to click the link and read the details, the basic gist is that the poster invited some guests to a cookout. The poster made a dish and the guest made a “teriyaki burger.” The guest wanted to serve the burgers with the centers cooked only to 115°. This really upset the poster who insisted to his guest that this was unsafe and that his kids were forbidden from eating them. He was so upset by this that he asked the forum whether violence was justified against his guest! Within the first 12 hours after the post, the forum consensus ranged from “serving burgers that rare is child abuse” to “you should have punched him.”

Ever the contrarian, I decided to jump in and defend the guest, saying that much of today’s fear about undercooked ground beef is way overblown. And rare burgers are fine if one understands the risks and accepts them willingly. Because the people at the BBQ Source are nice and civil, the debate remained subdued. But it’s clear that, at least in that forum, I am in a minority. So I set about researching the topic and trying to build my case. Rather than monopolize the forum, I’ve decided to build it here.

My Argument

1. Food safety guidelines published by the Government and other organizations are too conservative because they are either:
   • Designed to limit legal liability.
   • Designed by the Government to eliminate the greatest amount of risk for all segments of the population.
   • Based on commercial practices which are ultra-conservative in order to limit the impact of large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness.
2. The incidence of illness caused by E coli and other pathogens, while significant, is low, and comparable to other dangerous activities in normal life which people routinely discount.
3. Most ground beef in the US is processed safely and the large scale of many food recalls is caused not by evidence that beef is contaminated, but rather a desire to “be safe” at all costs.

The Pathogens

So, what is everyone so worried about? There are three primary pathogenic organisms that food safety types worry about in ground beef¹:

1. E coli (generic)
2. Salmonella
3. E coli O157:H7

Listeria, Campylobactr, and others are occasionally mentioned, but the three above are clearly the main causes of food poisoning from ground beef.

Current Guidelines

The world is full of guidelines for safely cooking ground beef. Basically, all suggest cooking ground beef to at least 160° to deactivate most bacteria ^1,2. But 160° also renders a burger pretty tough, particularly if it was made from 85% or 90% lean beef.

Concessions

I am most certainly not going to argue that cooking ground beef to 160° isn’t safer than cooking it to 120°. That is clearly not the case. But I do believe it is overkill and that cooking a burger very rare is most definitely not child abuse or worthy of physical violence.

Argument

Contamination of Ground Beef is Declining

First, contrary to what is shown on the news, I believe the incidence of ground beef contamination is relatively low, and in spite of the popular perception, I believe that the incidence of contamination has been going down for the last several years. As evidence, various trustworthy sources say:

• During 1996-2003, the estimated incidence of Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli O157, Salmonella, and Yersinia infections declined substantially. ³
• FSIS [Food Safety Inspection Service of the USDA] reported declines in the frequency of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of ground beef for 2003. ⁴
• The estimated annual incidence of several infections declined significantly from 1996-1998 to 2005. ⁵

Although there have been a few small upticks ⁶, the general trend is that food inspection is getting better and the incidence of contamination is decreasing.

So what are the actual chances of contamination?

Probability of Getting Sick is Low

One model predicted an annual probability of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (the common effect of E coli; see this article) of 3.7 x 10^-6 and a probability of mortality of 1.9 x 10^-7 per meal for the very young^{. 7} I interpret this as saying, in a vulnerable population (children), the chances of exposure to pathogenic E coli which will cause illness are roughly .00037% and the chance of resulting death is .000019%. This is effectively 0 until populations get large (like the 304,000,000 people in the US). I do understand that this includes burgers cooked in all stages and would be higher for rare burgers. But it does provide a good baseline perspective.

The important question is how does one relate the chance of contamination to cooking temperature? After all, this discussion was started by a burger cooked to only 115°. One USDA publication ⁸ referenced a paper ⁹ which addressed this via a predictive model for E coli contamination based on cooked temperature. Here’s what they had to say:

The model’s median probabilities of infection from E. coli O157:H7 are 51 per million at 130°F, 0.88 per million at 145°F, and 0.07 per million at 155°F.

Elsewhere, they mention that the relationship between the probability of contamination and cooking temperature is inverse and exponential. So after plotting the three data points, I used Excel to regress a line through them and came up with the following equation:

P_c = 4E + 12e^-0.264T where P_c is the probability of contamination as a % and T is the temperature in Farenheit. (R² = 0.9997.)

Solving this for a temperature of 115°, we get a probability of 0.26%. Now that’s not 0 by any stretch, but it’s also nowhere near 100%, so it hardly qualifies as child abuse. And, since this model was built in 1998 and contamination values have declined significantly since then, the 0.26% probability can be considered an absolute worst case.

So, let’s put that percentage into some perspective. Here are the probabilities of some other events for comparison.

Probability of being struck by lightning in the US (annual): 0.00035% ¹⁰
Annual probability of dying in a car crash: 0.02% ¹³
Annual probability of dying from a heart attack: 0.15% ¹⁴
Annual risk of a male smoker developing cancer (assuming a 78 year lifetime and smoking began at age 18): 0.16% ¹¹
Annual risk of having a heart attack: 0.41% ¹⁵.

That last one is particularly relevant. If you’re looking for a reason not to eat an undercooked hamburger, it should probably be to avoid a heart attack, not because you’re afraid of food poisoning.

Most Beef is Processed Safely

There is widespread acceptance that grinding one’s own beef from a large primal cut is safer than eating pre-ground beef. ¹⁷ I’m not really sure this is true — unless you practice good hygiene at home you’re re just as likely to spread surface contamination to the inside of your meat as a grinder in a big packing house, but nonetheless, people believe this to be true. I contend however, that my local supermarket, which grinds it’s own ground beef from large cuts, is more likely than I am to practice good hygiene, since they have inspectors and lawyers looking over their shoulder. And since most ground beef sold for retail is ground in the store, most ground beef that consumers buy is relatively safely made by their neighbor working in the meat market rather then cooked up in some distant, dirty slaughterhouse. ^{1, 2} One more reason why we shouldn’t overly fear a rare hamburger!

Conclusion

All things in life are best evaluated from an informed perspective. The problem is that good information is hard to find. There is a ton of information written by people, or more likely their lawyers, which all but guarantees that you won’t get sick after cooking your hamburger to the consistency of a truck tire. But no one bothers to tell you that you likely wouldn’t have gotten sick anyway, even if you left a little juice in the burger. And that’s my conclusion: since most ground beef isn’t contaminated in the first place, and cooking it to a reasonable 130° reduces the risk of illness close enough to 0 (for me anyway), eat a nice juicy burger and worry about the heart attack it’s probably going to cause instead. The main issue at play here is of course is the “Availability Heuristic:” people’s tendency to over-value unlikely but memorable events and under-value familiar events when making decisions. ¹⁶

For me, this boils down to an individual’s tolerance for risk, and while eating a raw burger might be more risky than sitting quietly and reading a book, it’s by no means the riskiest thing most of us do. Of all places, the European Food Information Council had probably the best summary:

Data from the United States shows that there is an approximate annual probability of dying from foodborne illness of 3.6 in 100,000 [0.0036%]. This is 7 times greater than the risk of dying from tuberculosis in the US each year and 100 times greater than the risk of dying from floods. On the other hand, this risk is 78 times lower than the probability of dying from heart disease, 57 times lower than dying from cancer and 4 times lower than dying from motor vehicle accidents. Even the mere act of eating food poses an annual risk of dying from choking of 5 in one million [0.0005%].

Everything we do in life poses some degree of risk. Attitudes to foodborne and other risks should be based on well-informed decision-making and science rather than allowing sensationalised media stories to lead us to believe that the risk is greater than it actually is. ¹²

Now, I have a confession to make: I prefer a nice burger done on a griddle to medium with a nice crust on the outside. But, if I have to grill a burger, I prefer it rare (pink) in the middle and I have eaten hundreds of rare burgers in my life.

So, what do I do in my own grilling:

1. This may be the most important part: I ask people how they like their burgers and cook them that way. I people want a well-done hockey puck, so be it. When left up to me though, here are my guidelines:
2. For vulnerable populations (old people, kids, pregnant women, etc.) I cook burgers to a nice medium all the way through.
3. When using pre-made patties, I aim for medium-rare, with a hint of pink in the center.
4. If using fresh ground beef from my supermarket, I leave a nice juicy pink in the center.

Your own tolerance for risk may vary, but from now on I hope this helps you decide from a position of knowledge rather than one of fear. Happy grilling.

References

¹ Fact Sheet: Pathogen Control in Ground Beef, American Meat Institute, http://www.meatsafety.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/2168

² Focus on Ground Beef, USDA Fact Sheet, http://www.fsis.usda.gov/fact_sheets/Ground_Beef_and_Food_Safety/index.asp

³ Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection: Editorial Note, Medscape Today, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/474981_2

⁴ Holt KG, Levine P, Naugle AL, Eckel R., Food Safety and Inspection Service Microbiological Testing Program for Escherichia coli O157 in Ground Beef Products, U.S., October 1994-September 2003. In: Program and Abstracts Book of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2004. Atlanta, Georgia: International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2004:100.

⁵ Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection With Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food—10 States, United States, 2005, Journal of the American Medical Association, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/19/2241

⁶ FAPC Provides Advice on Approach to Current Concerns with E. coli O157:H7* on Raw Meat Products, Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center, University of Oklahoma, http://www.fapc.okstate.edu/ecoli.html

⁷ Cassin, Lammerding, Todd, Ross, & McColl, Quantitative risk assessment for Escherichia coli O157:H7 in ground beef hamburgers, Int J Food Microbiol. 1998 May 5;41(1):21-44.)

⁸ Ralston,Katherine; Brent, C. Philip; Starke, Yolanda; Riggins, Toija; and Lin, C.T. Jordan. Consumer Food Safety Behavior: A Case Study in Hamburger Cooking and Ordering, USDA Agricultural Economic Report No. (AER804), May 2002. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer804/

⁹ Marks, Harry M., Margaret E. Coleman, C.-T. Jordan Lin, and Tanya Roberts, Topics in Microbial Risk Assessment: Dynamic Flow Tree Process, Risk Analysis, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 309-328, 1998.

¹⁰ National Lightning Safety Institute, http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/probability.html, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹¹ Based on Villeneuve PJ, Mao Y., Lifetime probability of developing lung cancer, by smoking status, Canada., Can J Public Health. 1994 Nov-Dec;85(6):385-8.

¹² Risk: Putting activities into perspective, European Food Information Council, http://www.eufic.org/article/en/food-safety-quality/risk-communication/artid/risk-activities-into-perspective/, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹³ Annual probability 1 in 5000, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/planecrash/risky.html, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹⁴ Based on 445,687 heart attack deaths and 305,000,000 US population. Heart attack statistics from Heart Attack and Angina Statistics, American Hearty Association, http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4591, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹⁵ Based on 1,260,000 annual heart attacks and 305,000,000 US population. Statistics Ibid.

¹⁶ Overcoming Bias: Availability, University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute, http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/availability.html, retrieved 24 May 2009

¹⁷ http://www.meatbasics101.com/ground_beef_01.htm

About two weeks after the initial discovery, our cardinal eggs have hatched and 4 hungry baby birds are chirping away waiting for food. Here’s the view from above:

4 Hungry Babies

This is a quick one:

The software that ships with the Sony series of e-readers is truly horrible. I should have believed the other reviews regarding this. So, if convenience is a major factor for you, then the Kindle is definitelty the better choice.

But, as usual, the Open Source community has come to the rescue of all e-reader users, this time in the form of a program called Calibre which is an amazing e-reader management tool. And free! I’ve been using this program for a week now and I can’t say enough about it. The main feature that I like is the ability to use pre-made “recipes” to download and package RSS content into an e-reader format. So Calibre is able to pull down all the important blogs that I follow for work and load them onto the PRS-700 for me so I can read them on the train during the week. Amazing.

Get it at http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/.

I finally took the plunge and joined the latest technogeek craze and purchased a new e-book, or e-reader since it displays more than books.

There are a few choices on the market today, but the category is dominated by either Amazon’s Kindle family (now the Kindle 2 and larger Kindle DX) or Sony’s e-reader family (now the PRS-505 & PRS-700). If you aren’t already familiar with the idea of an e-reader, it’s an electronic device dedicated to displaying text using e-paper technology. E-paper differs from a standard LCD display (think laptop) primarily because it isn’t back-lit. This has plusses and minuses; the biggest benefits are that no backlight means dramatically lower energy consumption (current e-readers can go weeks without recharging) and less eye-strain. Downsides are that, like regular paper, you can’t read in the dark.

Anyway, I spent the better part of several weeks researching these two device families. The differences are subtle in many ways. Because there are only two e-paper manufacturers in the world right now, and one is developing its own reader, both the Amazon and Sony devices use the same screens. So all of the differentiation resides in the design and execution of the other, non-core functions.

Cutting to the chase, I bought a Sony PRS-700, for which I will write a detailed review after I’ve spent a couple of months with it. For now though, I can outline the comaprison process I used to decide.

My Characteristics

Most reviews I read dive right to the devices and then describes which the author likes better. But rarely do the reviewers give us pertinent information about themselves up front. And this is critical t weighing any opinion. For example — one of the common knocks on the Sony PRS-700 is the slight reduction in resolution caused by the additional screen necessary to make the built-in light work. I’ve compared the Sony side-by-side to a friend’s Kindle and the difference doesn’t bother me. But I have perfect 20-20 vision and above average night-vision. If I wore Coke-bottle thick glasses, this might be a bigger problem! So here are some critical things I think you should know.

• I have perfect vision and great night vision. I’m the kid whose mother yelled at him constantly to turn on more lights or I’d ruin my eyes. She was wrong. I read in near-dark all the time. So display clarity is not super-critical for me.
• I commute to work by train, approx. 1-1/2 hours each way. This is where I do most of my reading. I rarely read in bed.
• I don’t read many books. Maybe 3 or 4 a year. 90% of my reading is periodicals, including The Economist (which I will continue to receive in print), and then selections from The Atlantic, The Nation, Newsweek, and National Review.
• My job requires me to stay aware of both industry trends found in blogs (like ePatients, Running a Hospital, Adam Bosworth’s blog, etc.) and in medical research, which are articles typically published in PDF format.
• I am a gadget and techno-geek. I don’t mind hacking my devices, using 3rd party or open-source software, and generally making things work for me. So convenience isn’t my #1 criteria.
• I don’t annotate my books or articles. I just don’t. All my life I’ve been fortunate to have an incredible memory for written material. Even in college I didn’t highlight or underline a single textbook.
• I live with my laptop. I take it everywhere and use the same laptop for home and work. It goes on vacation with me. So having a device with independent connectivity isn’t really important.

Now, on to the device comparison.

Physical Characteristics

First, a side-by-side photo (borrowed from the Computerworld review located at http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9130624)

Kindle to the left - Sony to the right

The design of the Sony appealed to me from the first time I held it. It’s more compact than the Kindle 2 and it’s made of metal. It feels more dense and substantial. Since I carry this back and forth to work each day, the durability advantage of the Sony (even if it’s only perception) appealed to me.

I also really liked the way that the Sony fely in my hand. Compared to the Kindle, it feels … well … like a book. And isn’t that the point?

Also, the Sony has a touch screen. For some reason that was important to me, and honestly I don’t know why — I would normally tell someone else expressing this that they were acting rediculous. The main benefit of the touchscreen is that you can turn pages on the Sony with a finger-swipe. On the Kindle you must use the buttons on the sides. I really love the finger-swipe. I admit it’s petty, but I rated it as an important feature.

Connectivity

The main differentiating feature of the Kindle is the built-in 3G wireless connection. Touted as a game-changing feature, the connection is clearly designed to facilitate purchases from the Amazon store. I will admit that I wasn’t impressed by this for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t read that many books and other than books, the Amazon store doesn’t sell much. Second, I dislike being tied to the cellular carrier which Amazon has chosen. Call it my net-neutrality streak, but any relationship between industry behemoths (Amazon & Sprint in this case) can ONLY server to screw the consumer. And the fact that the wireless costs are hidden only reinforces that for me. For what it’s worth, this is the reason I don’t have an iPhone either – the satanic bargain struck between Apple and AT&T is a horrible deal for consumers and should be declared illegal, in my humble opinion. So, unless I’m buying books from Amazon, which I’m rarely doing, both devices need to be tethered to a computer to work. And at least I can choose any carrier’s 3G card for my computer.

Content

The Kindle is pretty well tied to Amazon.com. It’s clearly designed for people who read and buy a lot of books and its features are all tuned towards making these purchases an easy and efficient process. But my research indicated that the Kindle falls down when other content is involved.

First, people other than Amazon sell e-books and these come in a variety of more “open” formats such as EPub or Mobi. And in the ultimate irony, Mobipocket was purchased by Amazon in 2005 and the Kindle doesn’t even support the format! So I am leftwith one of two choices: either Amazon is too disorganized or too rushed to incorporate support for their own technology into their new hardware, or, more probably, Amazon is trying to quietly squash more open formats which might compete with their book sales. Either way I am not impressed.

Because non-Amazon content needs to be converted there are only two choices – tether the device and get 3rd-party software (like Calibre) to manage the files or use Amazon’s service via wireless and e-mail which charges per download (there’s the satanic link again). Even after this, I read that the support on the Kindle isn’t spectacular:

Bonus 16th Update: Having copied over .DOC, .TXT, .RTF, .PDF, .GIF, .JPEG, and .PDB files directly to the Kindle via USB, only the .TXT file showed up for viewing.

The .DOC file I sent over the air to the Kindle arrived as a .AZW, the Kindle format, which implies to me that the only two file formats this thing can read natively are .AZW and .TXT. That’s a huge bummer.

- from http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/15-things-i-just-lea.html

And regarding the lack of support for open standards, I am inclined to agree with Tim O’Reilly who wrote this in a recent Forbes editorial:

Yet I have a bold prediction: Unless Amazon embraces open e-book standards like epub, which allow readers to read books on a variety of devices, the Kindle will be gone within two or three years. . .

. . . In developing the business plan for the Kindle, Amazon was no doubt influenced by the great success of Apple ( AAPL – news – people ) with the iPod: Proprietary hardware and proprietary file formats made Apple into the kingpin of the digital music industry. But what Amazon seems to have missed is the important role that “free” played in the success of the iPod. People didn’t populate their iPods solely with music purchased from Apple. It was easy for them to “rip” their own CDs into the standard mp3 file format and load their entire music collection onto the device.

While users can load some of their own documents onto the Kindle, there is no easy way to “rip” a book. But with epub-based readers, there are millions of free titles available, and books are available from many vendors, each able to experiment with new business models. . .

Because I read so few books and so many other formats, this was a no-brainer for me. The more open nature of the Sony system was appealing.

Conclusion

So, this all lead me to the Sony PRS-700, which I picked up a couple of nights ago at a local Borders. In the coming weeks I’ll let you know what life is like using this daily.

I’ve been a pretty handy person for most of my life. I’m pretty good with tools and passable at electricity and electronics. I can wire a house, sweat copper plumbing, overhaul an engine, and make things from metal. I can change the brakes on my car, calipers and all. I can weld. About the only thing I truly suck at is woodworking.

Yesterday I was repairing a simple little ladybug cap for our backyard bird-feeder when something occurred to me: this is already starting to rub off on my four year-old, and I think that is a very good thing. In what has become a disposable society, particularly for the middle and upper class in America, when one of her toys breaks, her first words aren’t, “I need a new one,” but rather, “Daddy can fix it.” And lately, this changed to, “We can fix it.”

At four, she has watched me repair several of her toys and helped as much as she can (she’s pretty good with a screwdriver). Together we’ve disassembled her Bubble Mower and fixed it at least three times. We’ve fixed her “bubble cow” toy which is just a little cow with a trigger and a fan that shoots bubbles out of its mouth. We’ve also fixed her Elmo bathtub semi-submersible submarine thingy.

So as I was bringing probably close to $1000 worth of tools¹ to bear on a $5 steel ladybug cap, I realized that it wasn’t about saving the money by re-using something. In this day and age, with hyper-efficient supply chains and cheap overseas labor, it’s rarely cheaper to fix something that costs less than $500 than it is to replace it. But the lesson for my daughter is priceless. Perhaps, as a child of this Depression, she will grow up and continue to think, “I can fix it,” rather than just tossing broken things aside and  filling up landfills while wasting resources.

¹ This stupid little repair was tackled with the following tools:

• Husky air compressor ($300)
• Air die grinder ($30)
• Lincoln Electric mig welder ($500)
• Various hand tools (~$50, housed in a $400 Craftsman tool chest)

Why use all this technology instead of some glue (like my wife asked)? This Orbitz commercial explains it all very well: Because We Have a Hovercraft.

I wouldn’t say that I’m a fanatical organic gardener, but I do use very few chemicals, and usually use organic ones when I do. I’ve always thought that the sign of a healthy yard isn’t an unbroken expanse of dense, almost fake looking turf, but a nice diversity of life — birds, squirrels, worms, and fuzzy little animals all living happily.

Since we moved into this house, we’ve had a constant stream of wildlife using our yard. For several years now, a family of robins has nested and raised their young in a next under the eave of our garage. There must have been a dozen new birds that have come from that nest. A couple of years ago I was working in my vegetable garden and I stepped on something under the mulch that squeaked. Turned out to be a nest of young rabbits that couldn’t have been more than a couple of days old. I covered them back up and tracked their progress every few days. A few weeks later 4 brand new bunnies hopped off to the woods.

We’ve had house wrens, finches, robins, and rabbits all call our yard home. This year’s new addition is a nest of cardinals. They seem to have made a home in an azalea in our back yard. We’ll keep taking pictures for the next couple of weeks as the young birds develop.

Here’s the nest today:

4 Eggs in a nest.

About a week ago I planted 25 asparagus crowns from my favorite seed source, Johnny’s Selected Seeds. The first few are already poking through after only 7 days, probably owing to the unseasonable warm spring weather we had last week (80 – 90 degrees for 4 days; unheard of in April).

Asparagus was a new plant for me, but I found some good resources with information: the best is probably on the Kitchen Gardener’s International site.

Isn't it cute?

One of the first foods I learned to make on my own was popcorn. Since the first JiffyPop I made on our stove top (useless link: Cute chick making JiffyPop on YouTube) I have been on a life-long quest to make the ultimate bowl. Along the way I have learned a lot about popcorn. Here’s the core dump.

First, lets get something out of the way — good popcorn consists of popcorn, butter, and salt. Anything else is just an attempt to cover up shitty popcorn, so you will find no recipes here for kettle corn, caramel corn, or popcorn with cheese, taco seasoning or, God forbid, cauliflower popcorn. Oh, and good popcorn is popped in oil. I lived through the era of the hot air popper and can say quite emphatically that hot air poppers are useful only for producing packing material.

The Equipment

For the last several years I’ve used a Back-to-Basics 6 quart stove-top popper (available from Amazon — I don’t make any money on this). I have the aluminum version which is OK. The stainless version is much better, but I’m not sure it’s $50 better. The aluminum version is good enough. I love popcorn, but you would have to really loooooooove popcorn to pay $50 for something that you have to crank by hand.

Forget right now about any consumer-grade, countertop electric poppers, no matter what the box, sales person, or TV commercial says. None of them are going to get and stay hot enough to work well. If you are even more frugal, you can use a big dutch oven or stock pot with a lid. I’d rather use this method than any electric popper if given the chance.

Oil

Perhaps the biggest debate in all of popcorn popping  is about the type of oil to use. More than anything else, the oil will lend a flavor to the final product. And there are noticeable but subtle differences between different oil types. Here are my observations about the flavor characteristics.

• Canola oil: Canola is one of the most popular oils right now and very useful for popping corn. Canola has a high smoke point and can therefore handle high popping heats. This helps it impart a slightly “darker” (meaning well done) flavor to the popcorn.
• Corn oil: Corn oil is similar to canola as far as smoke point, but it gives a less “nutty,” less “dark” flavor to the corn. I like corn oil a lot.
• Peanut oil: Peanut oil has the highest smoke point of any of the oils listed here. Most people say that it has a very neutral taste, but I can always tell when someone has used peanut oil. It sounds cliche, but peanut oil gives the popcorn a nutty taste.
• Coconut oil: Almost all commercial popcorn is popped with some amount of coconut oil. There is a great deal of controversy surrounding coconut oil and whether or not it is healthy or harmful. The argument is essentially whether the detrimental effects of the high saturated fat content are balanced by the presence or high levels of lauric acid which help balance cholesterol and other fats in the bloodstream. I’m going to stay out of that debate — but coconut oil lends both a crispness and a “sweetness” to popcorn. It’s a very distinct flavor element that you’ll recognize when you taste it.
• Cottonseed oil: Also common in commercial mixtures, cottonseed oil behaves a lot like canola oil.

My current favorite is either straight canola oil or something like a 2/3 canola, 1/3 coconut oil mix.

There are a lot of flavored oils on the market, with some or another variety of buttery flavor. I usually avoid these unless I’m using a pre-measured portion pack.

Salt

Popcorn salt comes in two main varieties: plain and flavored. Regardless of which you use, the main characteristic is that popcorn salt is an extremely fine grind. You can either buy special popcorn salt or make your own with kosher salt and a coffee grinder. Just take standard kosher salt and whiz it until it’s an ultra-fine powder. Viola — popcorn salt.

For flavored salts, the industry standard is something called Flavacol, made by the Gold Medal products company. You can read about the bulk sizes here. Flavacol is available from a variety of retailers in normal 1 quart sizes — just google “flavacol.”

Popcorn

Surprisingly, I have found very little difference in flavor between brands of popcorn. The main thing you want for a good batch is fresh kernels, so whatever brand you buy, make sure that it’s fresh. Once opened, popcorn goes stale rapidly, and stale popcorn doesn’t pop as fluffy and leaves a lot more unpopped kernels (called “old maids”) than fresh corn. I don’t buy large bags or jars, but rather smaller sizes that I will use quickly.

Butter

Salted or unsalted — your preference. The thing about butter is that it contains a lot of water (up to 16% I believe). So whatever you use, try and clarify it and use only the fat portion, leaving the solids and water behind.

Technique

This is the important part. There are some important tips here collected from years of experience.

1. Put the popper on the stove and turn on the heat. Give it a minute or two to warm up.
2. After heating, add your preferred oil mix. If you’re trying to be healthy, you can use a ratio of 1:6 oil to popcorn. So for a 4 oz. (1/2 cup) popper (roughly 6 quarts popped) use 4 teaspoons of oil. If you want good tasting popcorn like you get in a theater, then the ratio can be 1:2 — that’s 1/4 cup of oil and 1/2 cup of popcorn. You can play with this ratio until it suits your taste. The oil should shimmer if you’ve heated to the correct temperature.
3. Dump in the popcorn and salt. Close the lid and wait.
4. This is where I start melting the butter in the microwave. I use 3/4 to 1 whole stick for my corn, though I separate and leave behind the milk solids so it’s less than this amount that actually makes it onto the corn. I drop the butter into a one cup measuring cup and microwave it for 30 seconds. Then let it sit and separate.
5. As the corn begins to pop, you can start stirring if your popper is so equipped. Shake it occasionally if you don’t have a stirrer.
6. Here’s the important step — heat that is too high leads to chewy corn, so, just as the popping slows down, I turn the heat off, letting the residual heat finish the corn. This is a critical step.
7. When there are 2 or so seconds between pops, it’s time to dump into a large bowl.
8. Drizzle your butter, mix, end enjoy.

It’s a lot of work, but I promise you it’s worth it.

So I finally got around to installing WordPress tonight — as a “one click install” from my hosting company Dreamhost. Where this is going to go over the next days, months, or years, I have no idea. But I am finally tired of editing HTML by hand and was looking for something easier than Joomla to manage content on the site. We’ll have to see how this works out. Stay tuned…