Bob Westcott wrote:

> Pork producers and marketing boards have been encouraging people to
> eat their pork rarer for quite some time. It has been several
> decades since there has been trichinosis (sp?) found in North
> American pork.

I posted the same thing a couple days ago on a Yahoo list I'm on and
was corrected. Somewhere, I read or heard or something that 1957 was
the last reported...

> Combined with the ever decreasing amount of fat found in pork,
> rarer cooking is almost a must to have anything that is close to
> edible.

Actually, trichinae are still found in an extremely tiny number of
commercial pigs. The real hazards for trichinosis are in wild game=20
meats and home-raised pigs.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinosis>
<http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5206a1.htm>

Cooking pork to any temperature over 140=B0F solves any potential=20
problem, minuscule that it is. I've tried rare pork (120=B0F) and didn't =

like the flavor or texture. Med-rare (130=B0F wasn't much better. 145=B0F=
=20
works best for me. Very moist, safe, tender but with a good mouthfeel.=20
Mostly I do either boned, rolled and tied shoulders (BRT, to a=20
butcher) or whole boneless loins.

Pastorio

> "Goomba" > wrote in message=20
> ...
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>> A color picture in an airline magazine last month featured a
>> high-falutin pork dish at a fancy restaurant. Resting atop a pile
>> of fennel, couscous
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> and
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>> porcini mushrooms were 3 pork tenderloin slices cooked to a
>> frightening shade of pink. Am I too old to have noticed when the
>> USDA recommendation
>=20
> for
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>> cooking pork slipped to medium?
>>=20
>>=20
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