According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), you should wash your hands with warm water and lather up with antibacterial soap for at least 12 seconds before rinsing and drying your hands with a single-use towel. So, count them off: one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, you get the point! After you’ve washed your hands, consider yourself scrubbed in for surgery.
Here is a list of activities that will (should) trigger a rewash:
- Touching your phone
- Touching your face
- Touching your hair
- Touching money
- Putting your hands in your pockets
- Touching a door handle
- Touching trash
- Eating food
- Sneezing or coughing into your hands
- Before or when changing gloves
Aprons
Wearing an apron isn’t nearly as obvious as ritual handwashing may be, but it is definitely important. The clothes you are wearing are likely to have come into contact with all sorts of potential contagions throughout the day. If the food you are working with happens to come into contact with your clothing, then you can consider it contaminated. An easy way to deal with this is by wearing an apron like the one pictured here.
Photo by David PluimerA standard kitchen apron.
Before putting on your apron, make sure it is clean and hasn’t been used prior to you putting it on. Not only will the apron keep you clean when working with food, but it will also protect your food against unintended contamination.
Hair restraints
You know this has happened to you before. You went out to lunch, and took a bite of your mac and cheese only to be startled by a sudden flossing sensation. Hair in food isn’t sanitary and it isn’t appetizing. A proper hair restraint will save you and your family from the unintended gross-out of finding a hair in your sausage. A simple hair net, baseball cap, or sock hat will work. If you have long hair, pulling it back and putting it up will be critical as well.Food-safe gloves
Since working in food service, I’ve grown accustomed to using food-safe gloves for almost everything I do with food, regardless of whether it’s at work or at home. Food-safe gloves are an extra barrier of protection. They aren’t as necessary when handling food that must be cooked before it can be eaten. They are, however, an absolute necessity if you are handling food that is ready to eat, like salamis and whole-muscle charcuterie, which I discuss later in this book. The following figure shows some food-safe gloves.
Photo by David PluimerStay safe with food-safe gloves.
Gloves meant for food handling can be plastic or latex, and they can be powder lined or powder free. The powder makes it easier to slip the gloves on if your hands are still slightly damp from you washing them before putting them on.
Before you get started making charcuterie or a charcuterie board
Before you start handling food, you need to make sure that your work area and tools are all cleaned and sanitized. In a commercial setting, this is called a pre-op, which is short for pre-operational. At this point you will need to fill a small bowl or bucket with soapy water and another bucket with sanitizer, which can be a blend of bleach and water. You also need a separate clean towel to use with each bucket.You can disinfect with a solution of one tablespoon of bleach to one gallon of cold water. If it’s hot, the chlorine will evaporate off, so be sure to use cold water.
Once your cleaner and sanitizer buckets are ready to go, clean down each work surface with the soapy water and then wipe it down with the sanitizer.Once you have cleaned and sanitized each surface, clean and sanitize all of the tools and equipment you intend to use. These include knives, cutting boards, bowls, and any other object or device that will come in contact with food. Last but not least, you will want to visually inspect any device you will be using, like your grinder or stuffer, to make sure there aren’t any food particles that you missed the last time it was cleaned and put away.
One way to avoid missing any of these details is to put together a prep list, like the one shown in the following figure. You can print this list and have it in the kitchen for when you get started, and then simply check off the items as you clean and sanitize them.
Mark LaFay‘Clean and Sanitize’ prep list.
After you’ve checked everything off your list, you’re ready to get started.
You should also create a checklist that you can use when you’re finished in the kitchen. This is a good way to make sure everything is properly cleaned and sanitized before you put it away.