Once upon a time in Atlanta…

For breakfast, I ate a Russet potato which was steamed in the pressure cooker for about 10 minutes. It was kept out of the water by placing it in a basket placed atop a trivet inside the stove-top cooker.

Most often, in any pressure cooker, the food being cooked rests in the water. However, I wanted to find out what the food would be like if it did not.

The potato had been thoroughly cleansed and rinsed in the usual manner some weeks earlier, which for me, includes a capful of common, unscented, household bleach in addition to Dawn® brand liquid dishwashing soap.

My general rule is, all fresh fruit and vegetables get that treatment because:

1.) You don’t know how many people handled it at the store having not washing their hands after toileting, and;

2.) You don’t know about the conditions in which it was grown, if e.coli or other really bad cooties might have been present, or if it “picked up” something in transit.

While recalls of vegetables tainted with e.coli or other pathological bacteria are neither rare, nor common, per se, they are ONLY on the outside of the food, never within. So, every vegetable – including green leafy ones – tubers, and fruits of all kinds – are all susceptible to contamination, some more than others. And, because many people do not bother to use soap and water to clean that food, organisms can be, and are “passed along to” humans through consumption of tainted, uncleaned food.

Which reminds me of a story – a very germane story – directly related to the topic at hand, that being sanitation, and food.

Some years ago, while serving our nation in the Army Reserve, a fellow soldier in the same unit and I were attending a regional workshop/conference/awards ceremony in Atlanta, GA, along with other members from our unit, and soldiers from throughout the area command.

When the midday meal break time arrived, without any planning or local inquiry, we set out to find a nearby place to eat, and proceeded driving down Peachtree Street, a renown, and longtime main thoroughfare through the city, which even has its own Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peachtree_Street

Over the years, Atlanta has done nothing but grow, is second only to New Orleans for cultural diversity as an ethnographic mixing pot, and is justifiably called the “New York of the South,” not only for its massive population, but for the wealth of its global diversity.

So, as a longtime inveterate “foodie,” my eager expectation and hope to find a culinary delight, unique cuisine, or even exotic meal, in a metropolis like Atlanta, was second only to the sheer delight of travel, which served to inflate my expectations.

Suffice it to say, my anticipation of something vastly different from the standard fare common in both our relatively small towns, and hope that we’d surely find a something reasonably priced fairly quickly, relatively easily, met at the intersection of unpreparedness and unrealistic expectations.

In other words, things didn’t quite turn out the way I had fantasized them.

Earlier, while negotiating with Lionel (not his real name) along the way, he had agreed to my bargain, which was that, instead of us going to McDonald’s as he wanted, I would pay for his McDonald’s meal as a replacement, if – after trying the other, different cuisine, or restaurant’s fare – he wasn’t satisfied with what we found. You see, he wasn’t a very adventurous type, still quite young and inexperienced, and it was my opinion that his mother’s apron strings were very much still attached to him.

As we proceeded down Peachtree Street, we were aghast that there didn’t seem to be many restaurants, at least not as many as my unrealistic fantasy had supposed, and certainly not of the types in that misguided dream.

However, we passed by – figuratively and literally – an Indian restaurant which had a line of hungry people streaming out around the building, which we also thought was a good sign, but passed by, because we supposed the wait would be much too long to be served.

So we continued our journey, all the way to the end of Peachtree Street, then turned around to head back. In some sense, we felt as if we had eaten, having been served platefuls of disappointments on empty stomachs.

But, our fortunes turned when we again saw the Indian restaurant, this time, with no lines of people streaming around the building. Yet another good sign for our time-constrained schedules.

So, with our growling soldier’s bellies quickly becoming numb to the need for food, with eager expectations, we stopped in, hoping to satiate our appetites.

The wait staff seated us at a tiny table for two in a small alcove, alongside the only other table there, which featured a solitary diner seated adjacently.

Though he was engrossed with a book while enjoying his meal, after glancing over the menu, I turned and spoke to him, inquiring about the restaurant and menu.

As fate had it, he shared that he was a postdoctoral student in Indian studies, and had recently returned from India where he had conducted research. Hearing that, was to me, settling reassurance that he was a subject matter expert, even though he had no briefcase, and we were the ones who’d come from over 100 miles away.

Pausing briefly, he shared with us that when the waitstaff would come to take our orders, we would be asked if we wanted our food “all the way,” or not. He explained that, in India, there is a prevalent mistaken belief that the addition of hot spices to food helped “sanitize,” or “purify” the food, that somehow, the intrinsic heat from the added peppers “killed” or rendered harmless, any bad bacteria which might be present in or on that food.

With its open-air markets, customary Indian food sales are definitely radically different from other Westernized nations’ food handling practices. Sanitation is viewed quite differently, and often as secondary, in many such global markets, not only in India.

As he continued, he said that because of the proliferation of the mistaken belief that the addition of hot spices, peppers and other additives to flavor food and increase its “taste temperature” would kill bacteria, hot peppers and other such spices are among the most frequently handled of all items sold in the markets. So, by adding more peppers, and more hot spices, customers are actually increasing their risk of, and exposure to, pathological bacteria, thereby increasing risk of onset of disease after exposure to, and ingestion of, such organisms.

So, the lesson of the story is, if it’s going to be cut/sliced, or peeled with a knife – including all melons (bananas, and onions excepted, but includes citrus if it will be cut from the outside), it should be so fully cleansed.

Bleach will kill anything, and everything – including humans. For that reason, when used in moderation, it’s a superior, inexpensive all-around sanitizer.

It was the first time I’d ever done any of that – eat a steamed potato for breakfast, and pressure cook a potato.

The exterior surface of the skin was dry, but definitely not as if it were excessively baked, because it was quite tender. The body of the potato had split open along the side, and the skin readily fell off the flesh effortlessly, which was eaten along with the potato.

The potato was decorated with butter, liberally slathered with sour cream, to which was applied coarse freshly ground black pepper, coarse kosher salt, and capers.

And yes, it was quite tasty!

Oh… and what about the restaurant?

Fortunately, American food safety laws have much good to be said about them, and the standards to which, by law, they must adhere, because they are for the benefit of Public Health.

Acknowledging that difference, we both ordered our food “all the way” – his was chicken, mine was lamb – even though Lionel was quite obviously significantly less well-seasoned in experiencing and enjoying hot and spicy food. One could’ve imagined as much after curiously watching him eat sugar packets while awaiting the food’s arrival.

Nevertheless, because of its spiciness, Lionel couldn’t eat his plate, and for my benefit, graciously requested a to-go box, which I would later enjoy, while my plate disappeared shortly it arrived at our table.

And we stopped at McDonald’s for Lionel.