Eat where you can see a fridge ..............

[golden gate]

Most of the street food has no fridge to store the fresh meet, so by the time we eat, the meet has gone bad already.......... that is how you get sick.............

[beer monkey]

Most of the street food has no fridge to store the fresh meet, so by the time we eat, the meet has gone bad already.......... that is how you get sick.............

so what about the market's where all the meat is sold, it hangs around from probably 5 or 6 in the morning till market close's, the only protection the meat has got is the lady with the fly swat or stick with a plastic bag on the end, is some of it 4 days old already ? it don't take long for the lady fly to lay a few hundred eggs !!!!!
Where do food place's buy their meat, Market,shops with cool storage,delivery's with chiller truck ??
my stomach can take most things so i don't mind too much where it comes from.

But some of the meat you see hanging up seems to attract the attention of a few flys, i suppose its enevitable really.

And lets face it, it must be good meat as a thousand flys can't be wrong.

[Alagrl]

beermonkey, I wondered about the meat hanging in the market all day, also. Everywhere I have traveled (Europe, Latin America, Asia) there are open air markets. When I lived in the UK in the 1970s, the butcher shops still hung various meats all day, and I bought fish and lobster off the wharf -- didn't ask how long it had been displayed. I ate anything that appealed to me in Thailand, and much that was offered by new relatives -- never had any problem other than slight heartburn. Either I have a cast iron constitution, or I've been really lucky to shop markets with fresh meats.

[beer monkey]

beermonkey, I wondered about the meat hanging in the market all day, also. Everywhere I have traveled (Europe, Latin America, Asia) there are open air markets. When I lived in the UK in the 1970s, the butcher shops still hung various meats all day, and I bought fish and lobster off the wharf -- didn't ask how long it had been displayed. I ate anything that appealed to me in Thailand, and much that was offered by new relatives -- never had any problem other than slight heartburn. Either I have a cast iron constitution, or I've been really lucky to shop markets with fresh meats.

same for me.regarding the" i eat anything that appeals to me" bit
the hanging of meat is still standard practise. but obviously now we have the "electrocute the little pest's system."

recently i had a brace of pheasants and its always best to hang them for a few days before eating.
its just the meat in the Thai markets do attract a lot of flys,and we all know what flys do on meat.!!
oddly enough my TW likes to make batches of dried beef (a bit like jerky) and its left in the hot sun all day,then hung on the washing line in the garden with bits off string attached to each one, never seen a fly go on or near the meat.

[arjay]

Beer Monkey, You're a bit like Google - changing your Avatar to match the topic under discussion!

I wish you wouldn't do that at 11.00pm at night, when I'm just about to go to bed here in Udon. You've made me hungry for a burger and there aren't any for miles around!!

I suppose with you it's 5pm with you, and you're about to go out/home and can stop off for a Big Mac without any problem!!

[BangkokButcher]

It's the cooking that counts...

As long as the item in question is thoroughly cooked then you should not have a problem, as long as the product was fresh (ish) in the 1st place..

It wasn't that long ago that butchers in the UK had to (by law) refridgerate their meats for sale..

And let's face it, what did we all do before the fridge came along??

Now, rice that is cooked and reheated a number of times would give you the worst case of the cramps that you have ever known, and could well kill (albeit unlikely) you given the right circumstances:

Bacillus cereus is often present in uncooked rice, and spores that are resistant to heat could survive cooking.

If cooked rice is, later, held at room temperature, the bacteria can multiply, and a toxin could be produced that can survive quick re-heating, such as stir frying etc.

[Stevo]

It's the cooking that counts...

As long as the item in question is thoroughly cooked then you should not have a problem, as long as the product was fresh (ish) in the 1st place..

It wasn't that long ago that butchers in the UK had to (by law) refridgerate their meats for sale..

And let's face it, what did we all do before the fridge came along??

Now, rice that is cooked and reheated a number of times would give you the worst case of the cramps that you have ever known, and could well kill (albeit unlikely) you given the right circumstances:

Bacillus cereus is often present in uncooked rice, and spores that are resistant to heat could survive cooking.

If cooked rice is, later, held at room temperature, the bacteria can multiply, and a toxin could be produced that can survive quick re-heating, such as stir frying etc.

Good info BkkB,
so make sure your grubs well cooked before you tuck in

[beer monkey]

good point with the rice bkkb, some may not have known that.

nice grubs too stevo,worster sauce flavour i think.

[Stevo]

worster sauce flavour i think.

Nope, but just enough residue of soya oil, from the flash fry... to frost em' in a bag of bongshalot

[arjay]

Bangkok Butcher said:

If cooked rice is, later, held at room temperature, the bacteria can multiply, and a toxin could be produced that can survive quick re-heating, such as stir frying etc.

Sean, could you elaborate on that a bit more. I am aware that as a general principle, food and meat shouldn't be either left at room tempertaure for extended periods, nor re-heated after previously being cooked.

I had had the same thoughts about rice, but note my GF does leave both cooked rice and sticky rice out overnight, albeit covered. The sticky rice is left on a covered plate or in a bag - inside the microwave, and the steamed rice left in the rice steamer ( both turned off ) overnight. Is that too not a good practice?

[lee]

I had had the same thoughts about rice, but note my GF does leave both cooked rice and sticky rice out overnight, albeit covered. The sticky rice is left on a covered plate or in a bag - inside the microwave, and the steamed rice left in the rice steamer ( both turned off ) overnight. Is that too not a good practice?

My guess is that if you're GF's been doing it for years this way and hasn't got sick from it then it may be ok, or it could be a case that she has built up a resilience to the germs in it!

Most Thai families leave cooked rice overnight un-refrigerated and usually only warm gently when ready to eat again. Maybe the germs in the rice and the fermented fish sauce with heaps of chillies are the reason why so many of them get upset stomachs.

[beer monkey]

for me i don't eat rice if its been left too long all day and over night, the Mrs eat's it with a quick reheat but not to often, the thai's seem to have a thing about not wasting rice.
sticky rice go's too hard by the next day anyway, but i have seen her quickly re-steam some.

for me if its a day i stay away.!

[Edward]

When I was working in Lima Peru we would take nightly trips to the outdoor market for food. One night a "local" was with us and commented that it is always best to buy the meat with insects on it. His reasoning was that the venders realized how much of a turn off the insects were and would spray DDT on the meat to keep the insects away.
Cheers

[beer monkey]

When I was working in Lima Peru we would take nightly trips to the outdoor market for food. One night a "local" was with us and commented that it is always best to buy the meat with insects on it. His reasoning was that the venders realized how much of a turn off the insects were and would spray DDT on the meat to keep the insects away.
Cheers

Top Tip there. Thanks Edward.
as i mentioned before, two thousand flys can't be wrong !

[Alagrl]

Most Thai families leave cooked rice overnight un-refrigerated and usually only warm gently when ready to eat again.

This is an ongoing disagreement in my house, since my husband's Thai ex-wife always left rice in the steamer overnight and then warmed it up. He sees nothing wrong with it and wonders why I don't like it to sit in the steamer all night. This is the man who had severe intestinal problems during the time he lived in Thailand, repeated on several visits since.

I enjoy the fragrance of the jasmine rice and want to have freshly steamed rice even if the rest of the meal is leftovers. With most of our children gone now, we don't steam so much anymore anyway, and rice is is just not so expensive that I feel I have to "save" it.

When I was growing up, rice was more a starchy staple for us than potatoes -- my area of the southern U.S. grows more rice than anywhere else in the continental U.S. -- and it wasn't a leftover we tended to reheat.

[beer monkey]

and rice is is just not so expensive that I feel I have to "save" it.

i think the same, but the TW feels bad about wasting Thai rice,she says people have worked hard to grow it. suppose she has a point.

[BangkokButcher]

Sean, could you elaborate on that a bit more. I am aware that as a general principle, food and meat shouldn't be either left at room tempertaure for extended periods, nor re-heated after previously being cooked.

I had had the same thoughts about rice, but note my GF does leave both cooked rice and sticky rice out overnight, albeit covered. The sticky rice is left on a covered plate or in a bag - inside the microwave, and the steamed rice left in the rice steamer ( both turned off ) overnight. Is that too not a good practice?

Trying to keep it simple without baffling all of us (including me ) with some frighteningly long words that I cant even read let alone say, most problems with rice, soup and gravies happen in commercial situations where by a 'large' amount has been ready made and left to sit around and then re-heated.
If they were left to sit around for a little too long, the bacterial spores will become big enough to cause serious problems.

At home you would have to be extremely unlucky to be hit by a nasty bug as (like Lee said) your body 'should' have built up some resistance to the critters local to your home/kitchen/wife/kids etc etc.

As for meats and poultry, it's always pretty easy to tell if it's on it's way out, as when it spoils, it will either stink or turn a rather off putting colour, but even so, if you are going to re-heat, then ensure it is done thouroughly.

Not sure, but Freedom Fried's recent bout of bombay belly may have been for this very reason, eating partially cooked meat in Thailand is a big no no in my books, so always get your steaks well done and check it

[farang]

my x wife in korat would empty yesterdays cold rice out of the rice cooker in the morning and put it to one side.
then cook New rice for the monks that would walk past the house that morning.then we go back home and she would stir fry the OLD cold rice with 2eggs veg chilly etc etc etc ,and deep fry small whole fish.
we would eat that,then what was left over(rice,veg,bones) the cats would eat.
the new fresh rice cooked that morning was eaten for lunch and dinner.
never got ill, and if im cooking for myself i still do the same now.

[beer monkey]

bones

My Mrs has a good old suck on the bones and crunches on the Knuckle bits,the sound winds me up... and she knows it.

[arjay]

I sometimes see chicken which I think is not properly cooked, - more usually the chicken leg accompanying "American Fried Rice". The outside can appear well cooked, even crispy, but the meat inside looks less than fully cooked and there is usually a liquid within the meat. That always makes me a bit wary.