Egg recall: A blast from the past

What's wrong with that picture? Well, the egg looks moist and delicious with a yolk that is runny and perfect for dipping in a corner of buttered toast.

Food editors who swap messages on a list serve were chattering Monday about the Food & Drug Administration's latest announcement in the massive shell-egg recall: Cook your eggs until they are hard and the yolks are dry. For those of us who were around in the 1990s, that's a return to business as usual.

I had the luck to start covering food in the summer of 1990, when the first cases of salmonella contamination in eggs erupted just a few weeks after I was assigned to the beat. I had barely figured out how to spell "FDA" and I was trying to explain to people how to make custard-based ice cream without raw eggs, and what to do with their Hollandaise and mayonnaise recipes. In the 20 years since then, I've learned to type this one by rote: "Uncooked eggs can be dangerous for infants, children, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems."

Truthfully, though, undercooked eggs didn't go away. Because they taste good. The American Egg Board issued a statement this morning with this sentence: "Thoroughly cooked eggs are thoroughly safe eggs." Yes, they are. Unfortunately, they are also throughly tasteless eggs, with yolks that taste like library paste and whites that chew like rubber.

Over the intervening years since the original egg warnings, most of us found ways to adapt. We either did without dishes made with undercooked eggs, or we found ways to minimize the risk. For myself, I started buying eggs from farmers who produce them in small batches, because there is less risk of contamination. Unfortunately, I also had to get used to paying $5 for a dozen eggs. Yes, they're great eggs, with tall, dark-yellow yolks, but they're not exactly a cheap indulgence.

Yes, we still can get cheap eggs. Unfortunately, that means coming to terms with eggs that are

produced on large-farm operations, where contamination spreads quickly throughout the food system. And means recognizing that those eggs need to be cooked more thoroughly.

Don't you think 20 years should have been enough time to come up with a system that's better than telling us the solution to egg contamination is in how we're cooking, not in how we're raising chickens?

Egg recall still spreading

Eggs laid in Iowa may have cut a wide path through the U.S. food supply. A voluntary recall by Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa, of certain shell eggs that might have been contaminated with salmonella is up to 380 million. While the eggs weren't distributed in the Carolinas, they were distributed to food wholesalers, distribution centers and food service companies in 16 states that do business nationwide.

The recall started as part of an investigation into an increase in cases of salmonella contamination nationwide that was reported earlier this summer.

A spokesperson with the N.C. Department of Health said that there was a confirmed salmonella outbreak related to the same strain of salmonella in April. It stemmed from an egg product used in meringue at a Durham restaurant. However, that is the only N.C. connection so far, and state officials have not issued a warning about eggs or egg products in North Carolina.

Exposure to the salmonella bacteria can cause serious infections with symptoms that include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain, and can be particularly dangerous to young children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems.

While the investigation continues, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration recommends avoiding restaurant dishes made with raw or undercooked, unpasteurized eggs. Restaurants should use pasteurized eggs in any recipe (such as Hollandaise sauce or Caesar salad dressing) that calls for raw eggs.

You also should be aware of the symptoms of salmonella contamination. If you think you've gotten ill from eating recalled eggs, call your health care provider.