After reading of the ChiChi's Green Onion problem,
I cast a jaundiced eye at the onions in my fridge drawer.

They're green, look like scallions on steroids.....
I snip them into omelete, salads, soups, etc.

Are these "green onions" ??

When they showed the contaminated onions on the local news,
they looked like regular yellow cooking onions,
only they were green !
I guess I've never seen "green onions"

????

<rj>

I always have understood green nions to be shallots/scallions..

wrote in message >...
>
>After reading of the ChiChi's Green Onion problem,
>I cast a jaundiced eye at the onions in my fridge drawer.
>
>They're green, look like scallions on steroids.....
>I snip them into omelete, salads, soups, etc.
>
>Are these "green onions" ??
>
>When they showed the contaminated onions on the local news,
>they looked like regular yellow cooking onions,
>only they were green !
>I guess I've never seen "green onions"
>
>????
>
><rj>

"John D. Misrahi" > wrote in message
news
> I always have understood green nions to be shallots/scallions..

Scallions aren't shallots in my corner of the world.

From http://eat.epicurious.com/dictionary...TERM=scallion:
scallion
The name "scallion" is applied to several members of the onion family
including a distinct variety called scallion, immature onions (commonly
called green onions ), young leeks and sometimes the tops of young shallots.
In each case the vegetable has a white base that has not fully developed
into a bulb and green leaves that are long and straight. Both parts are
edible. True scallions are generally identified by the fact that the sides
of the base are straight, whereas the others are usually slightly curved,
showing the beginnings of a bulb. All can be used interchangeably although
true scallions have a milder flavor than immature onions.

From http://eat.epicurious.com/dictionary...?TERM=shallot:
shallot
The name of this onion-family member (Allium ascalonicum ) comes from
Ascalon, an ancient Palestinian city where the shallot is thought to have
originated. Shallots are formed more like garlic than onions, with a head
composed of multiple cloves, each covered with a thin, papery skin. The skin
color can vary from pale brown to pale gray to rose, and the off-white flesh
is usually barely tinged with green or purple. The two main types of
shallots are the Jersey or "false" shallot (the larger of the two) and the
more subtly flavored "true" shallot. Fresh green shallots are available in
the spring, but as with garlic and onions, dry shallots (i.e., with dry
skins and moist flesh) are available year-round.

--
If you enter 'green onion' in the Epicurious dictionary, it says 'see
scallion.' That's what I've always understood it to be, too.

If Chi Chi's served yellow onions that had *turned* green, it's no wonder
people got sick.

Cate

ChiChi's got those onions from Mexico and they were packed in ice made in
Mexico (don't drink the water). NAFTA has brought freer trade but perhaps
Mexico does not have sanitation standards equal to those in the good ole
USA. My question is, didn't ChiChi's WASH those onions before using them?
Would washing them, without cooking them, be enough to clean them of any
fecal matter that would otherwise cause hepatitis? I suspect they would be
OK if cooked but maybe that is open to debate as well.

"<RJ>" > wrote in message
...
>
> After reading of the ChiChi's Green Onion problem,
> I cast a jaundiced eye at the onions in my fridge drawer.
>
> They're green, look like scallions on steroids.....
> I snip them into omelete, salads, soups, etc.
>
> Are these "green onions" ??
>
> When they showed the contaminated onions on the local news,
> they looked like regular yellow cooking onions,
> only they were green !
> I guess I've never seen "green onions"
>
> ????
>
> <rj>

>Would washing them, without cooking them, be enough to clean them of any
>fecal matter that would otherwise cause hepatitis? I suspect they would be
>OK if cooked but maybe that is open to debate as well.
>

The answer is "no." Washing is insufficient, in this case.

In article >, derng >
wrote:

> ChiChi's got those onions from Mexico and they were packed in ice made in
> Mexico (don't drink the water). NAFTA has brought freer trade but perhaps
> Mexico does not have sanitation standards equal to those in the good ole
> USA. My question is, didn't ChiChi's WASH those onions before using them?
> Would washing them, without cooking them, be enough to clean them of any
> fecal matter that would otherwise cause hepatitis? I suspect they would be
> OK if cooked but maybe that is open to debate as well.

The FDA's latest statement is:

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2003/NEW00981.html

They'd like us to cook them fully, as in a casserole.


>
> "<RJ>" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> > After reading of the ChiChi's Green Onion problem,
> > I cast a jaundiced eye at the onions in my fridge drawer.
> >
> > They're green, look like scallions on steroids.....
> > I snip them into omelete, salads, soups, etc.
> >
> > Are these "green onions" ??
> >
> > When they showed the contaminated onions on the local news,
> > they looked like regular yellow cooking onions,
> > only they were green !
> > I guess I've never seen "green onions"
> >
> > ????
> >
> > <rj>
>
>

--
Jack

Hark! I heard "John D. Misrahi" > say:

> I always have understood green nions to be shallots/scallions..

Green onions = scallions. Shallots, however, are an entirely different
tasty bulb...


--
j.j. ~ mom, gamer, novice cook ~
...fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum!

This is a sincere question....

How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the pickers
of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
huge corporation?

Help please?

kilikini wrote:
>
> This is a sincere question....
>
> How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the pickers
> of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
> huge corporation?
>
> Help please?

They've already reported that a number of the workers have Hepatitis.
And if the pickers were the problem, obviously a lot more people in
a wider area would be affected than just one store in a chain.

nancy

That's what I thought.....................


"Nancy Young" > wrote in message
...
> kilikini wrote:
> >
> > This is a sincere question....
> >
> > How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the
pickers
> > of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect
a
> > huge corporation?
> >
> > Help please?
>
> They've already reported that a number of the workers have Hepatitis.
> And if the pickers were the problem, obviously a lot more people in
> a wider area would be affected than just one store in a chain.
>
> nancy

Gross Out Alert. Some of them (in Mexico) have been known to irrigate with
sewage water.

In America I think they use water (at least to irrigate golf courses, etc.)
that is treated but just hasn't gone through all the final treatment stages.

"kilikini" > wrote in message
...
> This is a sincere question....
>
> How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the
pickers
> of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
> huge corporation?
>
> Help please?
>
>

Nancy Young > wrote in message >...
> kilikini wrote:
> >
> > This is a sincere question....
> >
> > How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the pickers
> > of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
> > huge corporation?
> >
> > Help please?
>
> They've already reported that a number of the workers have Hepatitis.
> And if the pickers were the problem, obviously a lot more people in
> a wider area would be affected than just one store in a chain.
>
> nancy

But if it was the restaurant's workers, why is the disease traceable
only to the green onions? I would expect the workers would contaminate
a number of different things.

-bwg
Hit em up a tune called
Turkey in the Straw

Barry Grau wrote:
>
> Nancy Young > wrote in message >...
> > kilikini wrote:
> > >
> > > This is a sincere question....
> > >
> > > How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the pickers
> > > of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
> > > huge corporation?
> > >
> > > Help please?
> >
> > They've already reported that a number of the workers have Hepatitis.
> > And if the pickers were the problem, obviously a lot more people in
> > a wider area would be affected than just one store in a chain.

> But if it was the restaurant's workers, why is the disease traceable
> only to the green onions? I would expect the workers would contaminate
> a number of different things.

I can only assume that green onions were the common denominator for
the patrols who became ill, and that the person who chopped them,
whatever, was the one not practicing good hygiene.

nancy

Nancy Young > wrote in message >...
> kilikini wrote:
> >
> > This is a sincere question....
> >
> > How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the pickers
> > of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
> > huge corporation?
> >
> > Help please?
>
> They've already reported that a number of the workers have Hepatitis.
> And if the pickers were the problem, obviously a lot more people in
> a wider area would be affected than just one store in a chain.
>
> nancy

Sorry to, in effect, follow up to my own follow up, but I spent some
of my lunch break on the FDA and CDC web sites today.

On 11/21 the CDC released a report stating that as the restaurant
workers fell ill quite late in the outbreak, they could not have been
the source of the outbreak, although they could have been infectious
while working in the restaurant. A case-control study described there
pretty well pins down green onions as the source. The CDC's hypothesis
seems to be that green onions are a particularly good candidate for
being contaminated (they have been associated with other food-borne
illnesss outbreaks), and contaminated green onions combined with the
restaurant's food storage and service practices to cause this
outbreak. (Contaminated and uncontaminated onions may have been stored
together in buckets with shipping ice for as much as five days before
being processed into salsa, and the salsa may had a shelf life of as
many as three days.) The report includes a fairly detailed description
of the methods and preliminary analyses used in the study. I found it
convincing, but I'm not an epidemiologist or biostatistician. If you
want to read it yourself,
<http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm52d1121a1.htm>

-bwg

Nancy Young > wrote:

>kilikini wrote:
>>
>> This is a sincere question....
>>
>> How could the green onions cause that hepatitis outbreak? Would the pickers
>> of the onions have hepatitis or is the government just trying to protect a
>> huge corporation?
>>
>> Help please?
>
>They've already reported that a number of the workers have Hepatitis.
>And if the pickers were the problem, obviously a lot more people in
>a wider area would be affected than just one store in a chain.
>
>nancy

But surely if the pickers or the shippers were the problem any store or
restaurant that bought the same produce would have the same outbreak of Hep A.

It was my understanding that only a few cases of onions were thought to have
been infected.

In view of that, I think one can conclude that the contamination ocurred
somewhere in the logistics between farm and restaurant.

Dennis