753 More about egg safety

The January cover of Emerging Infectious Diseases has a 17th century genre painting by Diego Velázquez of a woman cooking eggs. The description is lengthy, but I noticed this passage, because I mentioned Salmonella Enteriditis in blog 741.

“The 17th-century Spanish diet was known for its parsimony. A main concern in the common kitchen was the long-term availability of food. The safety of food, a more modern concern, was probably not on the mind of Velásquez' food preparers. Unlike our contemporary equivalents, they would have known little about the dangers surrounding food. Nor would they have understood Savarin, whose sensitive 18th-century palate might have recoiled at the sight of eggs poaching slowly in oil on a clay stove.

An ancient staple, eggs have run the gamut from plentiful protein to gourmet delicacy. Yet, basic food and epicurean aspirations converge at one point: safety. With high levels of Salmonella Enteriditis in shell eggs, adequate cooking and proper temperature of the eggs overrule tradition, challenging the consistency of the sauce and the moment of delivery to the table. In our times, safety issues concerning not only eggs but all foods beg a different interpretation of another well-known Savarin aphorism, "The destiny of a nation depends on the manner in which it feeds itself." "

The article in this issue suggests between 180,000 and 200,000 illness a year in the US from Salmonella Enteriditis. The figures are not firm because only about 2,000 hospitalizations and 70 deaths occur. But still, make sure those eggs are thoroughly cooked before you eat them.

Blog 741 began with spelling problems, particularly the phth combination, diphtheria being one of four common English words that have such a combination. In the same issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases there is an article about diphtheria causing the death of the painter Georges Pierre Seurat at age 31.