Ah, but you are a fan of France, where I have seen it go the other way. American tourist, ordering a steak "well done". Waiter: "I'm sorry sir, but we don't cook our beef that way. Could I bring you something else instead?"

I hope you didn't actually pay for it.

@Patrick: "I hope you didn't actually pay for it."

I'm with you. I don't usually fuss in restaurants, but if the food's just not what I ordered, back it goes.

By the way, the Redskins couldn't move the ball against a bunch of DUCKLINGS!

Sorry, had to get it off my chest...back to the original topic.

I'm with you, Amy, I like my steak to "moo" to me, as well. I haven't had a problem around here ordering steak, I've always gotten it the way I like it. If I have any doubts about the restaurant (or if I see that sign about the "health dept. recommends fully cooking meats and fish,etc." I'll order a salad or seafood.

Old rpm daddy, the Titans had a time against New England, too. 59-0! And my Raiders finally WON a game, woo HOO!

That happens to me in two situations...

1) When I ask for spicey in an Indian restaurant. It usually isn't.

2) When asking for ice cream, I ask them to give me a small, golf-ball size amount. I tell them I will pay for the whole thing, but to please give me a very small amount. They always pile on something the size of a grapefruit.

I like my meat mooing also. My father used to tell them just to brown both sides and pull it off. Unfortunately everyone is sue happy now so these restaurants feel they need to protect themselves. The waitress should have told you when you ordered it that they won't make it that way instead of taking it upon herself to order it medium.

Please no football......my Jets are killing me!

I worked a grill for a few years at a pub restaurant, and there's a reason why you didn't get your hamburger "still mooing". Escherichia coli O157:H7.

Unless you're in a restaurant that doesn't care about the health and safety of it's customers, you will never get a hamburger that's "really rare". They just aren't served that way.

And before you say that you always get your hamburgers bloody rare, remember 2 things.

1. Sometimes restaurants don't care about the health and safety of it's customers.

2. If a customer is really obnoxious, demanding and, well, douchey, about their order, most cooks are willing to go out of their way to insure an unpleasant or even dangerous meal.

So, the next time you give your waitstaff a hard time, and the consommé is "tangy", you'll know why.

Ah, but you are a fan of France, where I have seen it go the other way. American tourist, ordering a steak "well done". Waiter: "I'm sorry sir, but we don't cook our beef that way. Could I bring you something else instead?"

You "have seen it" or have heard about it? I have a friend who always orders meat "bien cuit," well-done, and I have never heard anyone give her the slightest problem.

This was a restaurant with expensive entrees -- $24, $25, etc. (although my burger wasn't one of them) and at a place like that, you'd think they'd let you have your food the way they want it. Turns out it's a chain.

And I am not "obnoxious, demanding, and, well, douchey" -- I'm very nice to waiters and waitresses, and understanding of the job they do.

Asking for your meat rare, and even telling the waitress that you actually mean "rare" isn't rude, and especially not when you're a person who's nice, and talks to the wait staff like they're people and like you appreciate what they do. Which I am, and do.

especially not when you're a person who's nice, and talks to the wait staff like they're people and like you appreciate what they do. Which I am, and do.

You sure don't sound like you are, and do.

I'm with Amy. I usually order rare or medium rare, which is not well-done just slightly more done than rare. What the waitress brought out was not medium rare; maybe they just can't cook. If a restaurant won't do that, they should tell you when you order.

Actually, they could solve must of the e-coli problem if they would irradiate food, but the "food safety" people decided that everyone should eat over-done hamburgers instead.

As it is now, I understand the risk and would like my hamburger rare.

I think there was some confusion. I never meant to refer to you as "obnoxious, demanding or douchey". I was simply pointing out that, it's been my experience that those types of people get "special" treatment. Afterall, I read this column on a semi regular basis so I can imagine how you act in a public place.

But I feel the need to repeat that asking for your meat "rare" is fine. Asking for ground beef rare is not fine, because ground beef has to be cooked to something like 150F before you can serve it.

Simply put, they didn't serve you a rare hamburger because they didn't want you to get E.Coli poisoning.

I like my meat rare too. You should have been informed that they wouldn't do it. Would that waitress feel comfortable bringing you a pepsi when you said coke (I HATE that), simply because they don't serve coke there? People order what they want, if you can't provide it, you need to let them know.

My standard request is "As rare as is legally permissible in this state". On the odd occasion that I get a waiteress who hears "rare" and leaps to the pre-scripted "We cannot serve" I stop them and ask for the manager and get them to take my order.

I have a far larger problem in places who no longer sell hamburgers. Wendy's McDonald's et al no longer have hamburgers on the menu, only cheeseburgers. The Quarter-pounder doesn't exist anymore, only the QP with cheese. So I have to go in, tell them the ONLY thing I want on my burger is ketchup and onions. As in...

"Meat, ketchup, onions, bun, paper you wrap it in."

And then it comes and it has cheese and I hand it back and they ask "what's wrong with it?"

I am so glad I went to school.

I love my meat bloody raw too (Pittsburgh style please - a perfect quarter inch of sear all around and a blue middle). But I will not eat hamburger at a restaurant. There's just too much surface area exposed for my comfort, and how clean were the grinding blades anyway? It wouldn't take too much bad beef to spoil the whole lot. And a well-done burger just isn't worth eating.

So I grind my own beef at home from whole cuts and leave it as bloody raw as I like. I know what my health standards are in the kitchen.

pockmark is right - I used to run the kitchen for a local bar, and had to attend a "food service health class". If you actually get caught providing rare ground beef, you can be fined by the Health Department, at least in my State, which is not exactly known for being overly nanny-statish.

Millions of other survivors notwithstanding, it only takes one victim if e. coli poisoning to shut down a restaurant permanently, if they sue.

You and momof4 are also right, though, that they should have informed you, instead of just changing the order.

I also had a job where I drove a van to pick up airline crews for the hotel I worked for at the time, and overheard a Flight Attendant telling someone that she had substituted Diet Coke for the Coke that a fat woman ordered on a flight. I wasn't going to get in the middle of it, but I would have certainly let her know if she did that to me! I can't stand diet drinks.

Yes, you can eat a rare hamburger and not get E.Coli. Just like how people have sex without condoms without ending up pregnant.

But it only takes one, be it a Spermatozoon or a bacterial colony, to really ruin your whole day.

Try googling "E.Coli" and "Jack in the Box".

Kind of reminds me of an episode I saw of Dr. Phil. A woman took great pride in being a demanding bitch, because she felt that she was paying for the food, and it should be done exactly as she wanted. The problem with that was that she had absolutely no problem being rude and abrasive about it.

Dr. Phil told her that she's swallowed a lot of other peoples' spit in her life.

A local gay bar called the Pro Shop handled what I would have considered a minor infraction rather poorly. They ordered pizza from Pizza Hut, and apparently the person taking the order didn't get the name. But, knowing what kind of establishment the Pro Shop is, they simply wrote down, "Some Fag" on the ticket.

The Pro Shop related this incident to the local paper, without giving Pizza Hut the opportunity to make amends. Pizza offered free pizzas to the Pro Shop, but it was refused out of concern that disgruntled employees would do something to the food, despite assurances from Pizza Hut that they would make sure it didn't happen.

I was unimpressed, to say the least. They hurt the establishment's reputation out of one employees (minor) offense. Then further suggested (without grounds) that the cooks would actually spit on their food. There was no need to go public with this. They could have just told the Pizza Hut manager what had happened, and if they had reservations about retaliation, they could have accepted the order, and had it delivered to a firehouse, or a police station, or a nurse's lounge.

Eating undercooked ground beef is like playing Russian roulette:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?_r=1

Amy, you don't strike as the kind of person who takes stupid risks. Good luck with that.

My late father used to have just the opposite problem: He could never convince servers that when he wanted bacon well-done, he really meant well-done. Finally, in exasperation, he started saying, "Burn it. I'm quite serious." They were actually willing to do that, I guess because whatever else happened, they weren't likely to get sued over a case of trichonosis.

Amy, I don't know why you are trying to justify how you treat people because you wanted your burger cooked the way you ordered it. People who assume that you are rude or bitchy because you clarify that you want something rare are idiots. There are different degrees of rare which is why sometimes there is nothing wrong with saying, "really rare, please." What's so hard to understand? Again, the waitress took your option away by ordering it cooked differently than the way you ordered. She should have told you that they cannot cook it that way for legal reasons and offered you the choice of what you wanted. Its not rocket science. I'm not sure how anyone can make you the bad guy here.

Pockmark Notorious:

But I feel the need to repeat that asking for your meat "rare" is fine. Asking for ground beef rare is not fine, because ground beef has to be cooked to something like 150F before you can serve it.

Try googling "E.Coli" and "Jack in the Box".

Well, JitB wasn't serving rare meat, they were serving SPOILED MEAT.

And if the place you are getting your burger from is using good meat (preferrably Black Angus), your risk is less than minimal.

That said, I like my burgers just past medium. Don't like a mushy burger.

"Wendy's McDonald's et al no longer have hamburgers on the menu, only cheeseburgers."

"I am so glad I went to school."

Really?
I get plain burgers from McDonald's for my dogs all the time. They even have hamburgers and QP (without cheese) listed on the menu at their website. Same thing with Wendy's.

It doesn't matter how "good" the meat you are using is--e coli doesn't know the difference between Black Angus and fast food burger. E coli is always present in beef as a by-product of beef's status as dead creature. The problem arises when the beef's temperature rises above safe storage temperature (above about 40 degrees F). The e coli starts to reproduce and a safe level of e coli becomes an unsafe level of e coli.

Heat kills e coli so state regulations usually set a "safe" range for food service. For beef, the safe temperature is 160 degrees F. That means that beef has to be at a temperature of 160 degrees F at center before it can legally be served to you. At 160 degrees at center the rarest a burger can be is medium rare. That's why very few restaurants will serve a rare burger (and the diner that serves you rare eggs is really risking losing their license to do business if they are caught).

Now, on that menu at Andiamos is a statement that the restaurant doesn't serve rare meat and that consuming undercooked meat or eggs is a serious risk to your health. I know that this is true because of two things 1. it is required by Michigan law to be there and 2. because I have eaten at Andiamos myself and have seen it.

So you can't blame the waitress for doing her job absolutely correctly. She wasn't the knucklehead who screwed up, Amy, you were. Even had you asked for the burger rare, really, you would have still received it medium rare.

I don't know Amy, but I'm sure she was super polite to the waitress that made assumptions about her burger order. Amy complaining about her well done burger on her personal blog doesn't strike me as a breach of manners.

Amy, I haven't pre-ordered your book, but am hoping you will come to San Francisco to promote it. Schedule willing, I'll be in line with my purchased copy waiting for you to sign it.

How can you be sure she was super polite if you don't know her? That's an assumption about Amy just like the assumption that the waitress supposedly made.

Amy may have been polite or she might not have been. We often don't know how we come off to others unless we are told--especially to waitrons and other service people.

Floyd, I have to disagree with you. If the restaurant cannot provide what the customer wants, for whatever reason, they should tell the customer that up front. They should not just do what they always do and assume that the customer will have no choice but to accept it.

Vinnie, I have the same problem trying to get a fish sandwich without tartar sauce. Hate that stuff. Last time I went into a Mickey D's and ordered one, it arrived drowning in tartar sauce. Despite the fact that I had (as I always do) been very careful to say "no tartar" in a clear voice, I could see from the receipt that the person who took the order had punched in "extra tartar". And this was at the counter, not the drive-thru.

I can see why they decided not to risk it and make it rare, but the question remains, why didn't they just TELL her that they couldn't make it rare to begin with?

Depending on the type of meat, I am a rare or medium rare gal myself.

It's interesting because some chains won't give you a raw steak, but non-chain restaurants will (and even offer some on the menu like steak tartare or Carpaccio), - in fact, I once ordered a cut of stake "moo-ing" at a french restaurant. The chef came out to actually thank me; "That is how this meat is suppose to be eaten, I cringe when people ask for it well-done".

I am guessing that the types of meats served at nicer restaurants are of higher quality and there is probably less risk of E.coli and such. I would guess that it may be an insurance issue for large chains serving the general public, so they may have a policy against serving meats too rare because it will keep their premiums lower.

Kinda like how McDonald's can't serve their coffee above a certain temperature because some moron had to sue because she burned her legs by putting coffee in between them...

From your description of the Rochester incident, Amy, it sounds like you've been able to get rare burgers normally, and this was an exception. Where do get them? It's been at least ten years since I've been in a restaurant that would serve a burger rare. (My taste in beef runs to "Just let the bull loose, I'll rip off a hunk as he goes by.")

Now I'm going to charcoal BBQ cheeseburgers tonight. The best recipe I have ever been given is mix some green peppercorns, worshesire, BBQ sauce and tobasco into the ground beef, let sit overnight. Gotta be at least 15% fat ground beef.

Damn, and I have to work through lunch today.

I really cannot understand how some people think it’s okay to just make a decision for someone else without asking. I have a friend who went to a restaurant before she had to go to work one afternoon. She was really hungry and wanted to eat some pancakes, so she ordered the stack of pancakes, which was supposed to come with 5 of them, but when her plate arrived she only received 3. She is a very thin girl, and according to her waitress, she didn’t look like she could eat all 5, so she told the kitchen to only give her 3. My friend was so angry, not only did she not get all of her pancakes; she also had no time to wait for her other 2 to come because she had only set aside enough time to order, eat, and get to work. I don’t understand where that mindset comes from, that says making a decision for someone else without asking is okay, especially when given pretty clear instructions.

E.Coli is not present because the cow is dead. E.Coli comes from fecal contamination during butchering. It's impossible to eliminate completely, other that by irradiation, but if a slaughterhouse is well-maintained, it's kept to a minimum. Keeping meat improper temperatures makes it worse because the bacteria are able to reproduce more. It's much less of a issue with steaks because, since the bacteria comes from fecal contamination, it's not inside the steak; it's on the surface, so even a rare steak gets hot enough on the outside to kill most of the bacteria. Grinding meat takes the surface contamination, if present, and spreads it thoughout the meat.

Most people get food poisoning at home, because they're not as careful as most professionsal are about keeping uncooked and cooked foods separate. If you're cooking burgers on the grill and you put the cooked burgers on the unwashed plate that you had the uncooked burgers on, you've cross-contaminated your burgers.

Whether you get sick and how sick you get depends on how much bacteria is present, obviousl as well as your own health--young children and people with sick immunological systems probably should avoid rare hamburgers.

For most of us, it's not Russian roulette; it's a very small, and I think, reasonable risk. I understand the restaurant's liability concerns, also.

In the restaurants I've worked at, we couldn't serve anything made with ground beef at a temp less than medium; I believe it's a health code thing. I always let people know, though, so that they could either order something else or prepare for a medium burger. I don't know of anywhere that wouldn't let you order a steak rare, though.

I had really bad eggs benedict the other day, at one of the nicer places in town... they overcooked the eggs, and I think the hollandaise was either from a mix, or wasn't quite fresh.

Oh, and as a former waitress, there's not a problem with someone ordering their food the way they want it. If someone has an issue with the way a customer orders her food, she shouldn't be waiting tables.

Also, a restaurant having a little sign somewhere, or having a tiny blurb on the menu stating that they don't serve meat rare, doesn't excuse the server from notifying the customer that the item can't be served as requested. That's bad service.

We know a guy who orders steak, sez "Just knock the horns off and wipe its a**." My wife will not eat a burger touched by mayo; about 70-80% of the time we go there, Wendy's rocket scientists apparently do not understand the meaning of "no mayo." No response from my complaint to their website about this error by a gal at the counter who had just made fun of the customer in front of me whose order they botched ...

I've found some of the comments rather interesting. There's a big difference between a steak and a hamburger... and that difference is that while you know the steak came from one animal, the hamburger probably came from hundreds of different animals. That's the reason food poisoning is such a problem with hamburger vs. other cuts of beef... all it takes is for one of those animals to have been handled incorrectly and you've got e coli.

I have a butcher down the street from my place where I can buy locally produced hamburger... but that is the exception, not the norm, not by a long shot, and certainly not in the restaurant business, which is super-sensitive to price. Ordering a rare hamburger is dumb, point finale, unless you take the beef and grind it yourself.

As a previous commenter noted, irradiated ground beef is safe. The regular stuff can be risky to eat undercooked. However, it's Amy's decision, not mine.

I think as long as the customer is warned of the danger, the customer should have her way.

Adult life was not meant to be lived with training wheels.

I don't see it as dumb, just slightly more risky and lots more flavorful for me than ordering it well-done.

You can't eliminate risk from food or anythings else. We all do kind of risk/benefit analysis in what we order, what we buy, how we live. The key, to me is understanding the true risks. The risk from a rare hamburger from a well-maintained restaurant is minimal. There are outbreaks of sickness in the US but when you consider we're a country of 300 million people eating hundreds of thousands burgers each day, the food supply is generally safe. Perfectly safe, no.

If it were risky to the point of "dumb", I don't think you'd find any restaurants willing to take the risk.

Almost any food can make you sick if it's improperly processed, stored, or prepared. There were a couple of e-coli (I think) outbreaks a couple of years ago that were linked to lettuce; nobody's telling me to cook my lettuce. Loose-leafed lettuce should be washed; iceburg lettuce, peel and throw away the top layer. Perfectly safe, no. Safe with reasonable precautions, yes.

> "Just knock the horns off and
> wipe its a**."

Har!

E. coli is an anaerobic bacteria that is present on the outside of the meat when it is butchered; this is an aerobic environment, where the e. coli's ability to bloom is very retarded. And if that remains one solid slab of meat, the hottest places are where the E. Coli are. E. Coli are probably present on every piece of meat sold in the U.S. and nearly every where else for that matter. "Combined animals" has nothing to do with it. That you passed it all through the same processing does, however.

When ground beef is ground, the e-coli is introduced to the middle of the meat, where the environment is anaerobic (it's necessary environment), and the E. Coli can successfully grow and breed at exponential rates as the meat warms. (And it only warms if you eat it very rare. If you warm it to levels that won't kill the E. Coli, you're asking for it.)

It has nothing to do with the "quality of the meat". Eating a rare burger is a lot like playing Russian Roulette. When you shoot yourself, by either method, finally, don't complain.

So, when will you people learn something about food safety, before you actually comment on it? Including you, Amy?

Russian roulette--playing with a traditional revolver, you've got a 1 in 6 chance of losing. Very risky. I would not play Russian roulette.

Most of what you said, others on this thread, including myself, have said. Anaerobic--thanks; I'd forgotten that.

There are people who like to drink raw milk (unpasturized) for various reasons (taste, supposed health and nutritional benefits). It's riskier than pasturized milk, but it's not certain death or even a 1 out of 6 chance of death. As long as people are aware of the risk, I think they should be allowed to take that risk. But if you try to sell raw milk in most states, they act like you're Hell's Angels selling meth.

Weighing risk versus benefit--it's a freedom thing.

I wonder if Amy Alkon is in the intermediate stages of that cow-brain disease transmitted by rare beef.
I like pork better anyway.

>"So you can't blame the waitress for doing her job absolutely correctly. She wasn't the knucklehead who screwed up, Amy, you were."

The point isn't how the meat is cooked, the point is if they cannot cook it a certain way (for whatever reason) they should let the customer know up front.

BTW, I *have* seen menus where they do mention that they can't cook meat certain ways.
Maybe this restaurant should look into putting a disclaimer on their menu.
I know -- rocket science.

In reference to the McD's and cheeseburgers.

A few years back, they were running a special for double cheeseburgers at $0.99 but a double hamburger was $1.33. So you had to order a double cheeseburger, no cheese to get them at the cheaper rate.

It just struck my sense of irony.

Cousin Dave,
As I said earlier, restaurants in Michigan are required to have posted where customers can see it (and Andiamo's does) that they don't serve undercooked meat and that consuming undercooked meat is a health hazard. Most restaurants have this right on the menu itself though others might also post a sign somewhere. It's not the restaurant's or the waitress's fault if customers don't see or ignore the warning/disclosure statement.

The funny thing is that there's a much higher risk from a completely different food group: Organic vegetables. They have all that crap thrown all over them because the silly hippies won't use "unnatural" fertilizer.

Ruby Tuesday is the only place in town where I can get a rare burger. The manager came out last time we were there and confirmed my husband's request to make his blue. "You mean Pittsburgh rare, right?" Someone who knows how to cook a burger - warmed the cockles of my heart. The manager said he'd make it himself. It came out perfect (I wouldn't eat it that rare myself). I looked into why they'll cook a burger to order when nobody else will give you less than medium well. I discovered it's because if you're getting the ground beef from multiple sources like most people do, there's a risk of contamination, but according to Ruby Tuesday they get theirs from one source. When I buy ground beef at the store the package lists three different countries, so my homemade meatballs and burgers are cooked to 160. And no, I don't work for Ruby Tuesday and they aren't giving me anything.

I was trying to remember where I'd ordered a burger rare and it was at a Ruby Tuesday's, in Indiana, I think.

Typical American: "Excuse, I ordered Coke not Coke Classic!!"

We spit in your food. All. The. Time.

Hey Beth, you forgot "Fuck you, FTC!"

My comment could also be directed to LS--Andiamo does have the warning/disclosure as required by the state of Michigan.

Beth,

No. It doesn't matter how many sources you get the meat from. All beef has e coli because it is dead cow. That's where e coli comes from--cows. The danger is when the e coli starts to multiply as the meat warms up to room temperature (above 40 degrees or so).

Where do all these false ideas about food safety comes from?

And of course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElNpwX_8YpQ

E coli is not dead cow. It (escherichia coli) is a bacteria found in the lower intestines of warm-blooded animals.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli?wasRedirected=true

Floyd- do you remember all those folks a few years back keeling over from e coli lettuce and spinach?

Never seen so many f-ing know it alls in my life. E-Coli = dead cow, are you Jethro Bodine or something? Did you graduate from the 2nd grade? I like my burgers thick and slightly bloody. Seered on the outside, juicy on the inside, about 1/3 pound to start, yum, yum

They probably assumed (incorrectly) that you're not a complete fucking idiot, and were asking for a burger as rare as possible within the limits of the statute and common sense. They probably get the odd person who wants a rare burger and that's what they serve. To me (a European), you seem like a typical American: you go to a cheapo chain restaurant and expect silver service, and here you are whining about how they were at fault afterwards, when really, if you want rare meat, you should ask for it in a context where it's possible, not one where it would be illegal to provide it.

Floyd, if that's the case then all is fair. But did Amy's menu have the disclaimer?

Correction: if it was on menu she shd've seen it. But a reminder from the waitress ahead of time couldn't have hurt.

Fascinating some of the things you learn from the comment sections of blogs...

Robin: The claim that organic food is more dangerous is based on a single inaccurate article by Dennis Avery that has been repeatedly cited since 1998. He claims that the CDC found an 8-fold higher risk for E. coli associated with an organic diet. The CDC never did such a study. Among other errors, he conflates organic and unpasteurized -- so for example, the E. coli outbreak caused by unpasteurized (but not organic) Odwalla is erroneously cited as the fault of organic food.

A similar thing happened a few years ago with the spinach-borne outbreak -- because the company that grew and sold it *also* grew and sold organic spinach, reports quickly became "organic food giant sells tainted spinach" and then "organic spinach tainted". The first is misleading, the second outright false -- every single one of the contaminated bags of spinach was conventionally grown. Every one.

Conventional farming also uses manure quite often, since it's actually pretty inexpensive (except to transport) and chemical fertilizers do little to stop erosion. Organic farming standards require some very careful composting which minimizes the likelihood of pathogenic bacteria growing in it. Conversely, somewhere between a third and a half of all feedlot cattle harbor the pathogenic O157:H7 strain of E. coli.

The primary means by which E. coli is spread to farms is not actually manure (which is composted), but streams and groundwater. Guess where most of it comes from? Feedlots. When cattle are raised on forage rather than grain, there is a dramatic drop in the population of pathogenic E. coli.

Finally, Avery works for the Hudson Institute, which is chiefly funded by large agribusiness companies. This doesn't in itself mean he has false beliefs, but it goes a long way toward explaining *why* he might have those beliefs.

H. Philips: Thank you for your informative response. I was wondering if the claim could possibly be true.

"I actually like my beef not just rare, but pretty much "still mooing." And if you want me to sign a paper saying I won't sue you if I grow a second head or if my first one falls off into the toilet, that's fine by me."

So, what, you expected the waitress to say "wait a moment while I go get a lawyer to put together a legally binding waiver"?

This ain't my kinda problem, but I'm with Amy. Telling a customer that their order can't be fulfilled after delivery is made and payment is expected is dishonest.

Steak Tartare?

I didn't say e coli was dead cow. I said that beef is dead cow thus all beef has e coli. It doesn't matter if you get it from one source or many sources, from high grade meat or low grade meat. A little reading comprehension goes a long way. As for the Jethro Bodine comment, yes as a matter of fact I did grow up on a farm thank you for asking.

As for e coli infected lettuce and other veggies. Yes, you can get e coli from plants especially if those plants were fertilized using cow manure, or e coli infected water (usually water containing animal feces) is used to irrigate plants or floods out fields.

"Correction: if it was on menu she shd've seen it. But a reminder from the waitress ahead of time couldn't have hurt."

It was on the menu. It is required by Michigan law to be on the menu. Also, it is common sense that rare burgers are basically against the law as beef must be cooked till the temp at center is at least 160-165 degrees F (I believe the temp varies by state). Any meat cooked to the legal standard will be at the very least medium rare.

stupid lousy Flanders.

~ Homer Simpson

Ron writes: Never seen so many f-ing know it alls in my life. E-Coli = dead cow, are you Jethro Bodine or something? Did you graduate from the 2nd grade? I like my burgers thick and slightly bloody. Seered on the outside, juicy on the inside, about 1/3 pound to start, yum, yum

Jethro Bodine was a sixth grade graduate.

For my own part, I can't stand a burger that's raw in the middle. I like them firm.

Of course, none of you would sue the restaurant if you got ETEC or EPEC, right? Riiiiiiiiiiight.

I am moved to comment by you stupid fucking people who keep arguing about a non issue. While Amy and a lot of us would prefer a restaurant which did serve rare burgers, she wouldn't have written about that and doesn't really care too much about it. The issue is that when she ordered her rare burger the waitress didn't say a goddamn thing about it! She was then served something she didn't order, didn't like, and couldn't fix in time to enjoy a meal with those in her company. If the waitress simply said "I'm sorry but we don't serve rare burgers" that would have been the end of the issue.

It doesn't matter if there is a disclaimer on the menu, door of the restaurant, or regulations commonly known to everyone in Michigan. Rare is a commonly understood term that actually has meaning. There is no such thing as "restaurant rare" or "Michigan rare" that diners should be expected to know about. If you order anything at all in a restaurant and the server knows at the outset there is no way she can or will bring that thing to the table, if she wants a tip, she should say so immediately.

A special note to the European idiot commenter's - sorry that we actually expect service from people who work in a service profession. I'm sure it's difficult to understand that we would like prompt and attentive service from someone we would like to pay to do a good job for us instead of just sitting while the wait-staff finishes the paper and makes plans with their friends. Oh, and buy a fucking ice machine for christsakes!

All of you people who want your meat barely warm are missing the important points:
E. Coli is anaerobic, it is on the surface of a steak, or any slab of meat that hasn't been irradiated.

When the meat is ground, much of the anaerobic bacteria is put into it's ideal environment, where it can breed very well, then it is warmed to a degree that doesn't kill it, or much of it.

As it rises to whatever that best/last temperature happens to be, it will go through explosive growth, as any organism will do if placed in its ideal growth environment, giving you quite a dense population in the meat. If the temperature continues to rise to the 150 degrees, most/all of those explosive-growth bacteria will die, rendering them harmless. If it doesn't rise that high, all of those viable E. Coli bacteria are available to infect you in parts of your body that they don't belong.

(We have E. Coli in either our small intestines or our colons, I don't remember which, it's why people get peritonitis when they get gut-shot, bet you didn't know that, did you?)

Once you're infected in all of those places where E. Coli don't belong (the upper part of your gut and blood stream), you stand a good chance of dying, if the population of E. Coli was dense. So, the real questions become, how long ago did they gring the meat, and how long has it been warm enough to breed E. Coli, and how long did it stay at those sweet-zone temperatures?

Worth the chance? No, not really.
It really pays to know something about what you're talking about, before you start talking.

brantl -

Before you berate someone, perhaps you ought to take your own advice.

To wit - how did the E.coli end up on the surface of the meat?

It is not a normally occurring substance in meat. It is, however in the digestive tract.

So the problem isn't meat or its level of doneness. The problem is improper slaughter and butchery procedures.

Fix that problem, and all the downstream problems go away.

E. coli lives in your colon (which is why it's called E. coli), along with around 400 other species of microbe. The pathogenic O157:H7 strain of E. coli is not pathogenic to cattle (or pigs or deer) and can live in their colons without causing any problems. It's a lot more prevalent in ground beef than in steak for the reason brantl mentioned, and also because ground beef is likely to be mixed together from multiple beeves (and only one needs to be contaminated to quickly ruin the whole lot).

Most cases of hemorrhagic colitis from E. coli are from undercooked ground beef, followed by unpasteurized milk and contaminated water, then vegetables and flies (flies will pick up all kinds of nasty crap and get it on your food). When cattle manure is used for farming, it is not just shoveled on to the field; it is composted. The National Organic Program Standard has explicit rules about composting, specifying temperatures and times (varying; 90-120 days) in order to guarantee safety, and the produce cannot legally be labeled organic if these practices are not followed. When pathogenic E. coli is found on crops, it is nearly always from groundwater or streams contaminated by runoff from cattle feedlots.

Right, also, even if it doesn't kill you, you're in for around 3-8 days of bloody diarrhea. I suffered gastroenteritis (not hemorrhagic colitis, fortunately) after eating some seared ahi from an upscale cafeteria[*] and it was just awful, but only for a day. I will still eat sushi/sashimi, but only from sushi places.

* "I'll have the seared ahi, please"
"How do you want that cooked?"
"Seared, so I guess as little as you're allowed to cook it"
"Okay" (sears fish on grill in front of me where I can see it, for a little while)... "Here you go"
"Thanks. OMNOMNOMNOM. BLEAH"

Who are all these people?

I like my meat medium-well to well-done (much to the chagrin of chef's everywhere), but I don't see any disagreement about there being some level of additional risk in ordering ground beef rare. Whatever that percentage might be or however it is created...is not the point of the post.

Let's say you really don't like onions, and you see this great dish that sounds just the way you like it except without the onions. You ask your waitress if you can get it without onions and she takes your order and disappears. She doesn't come back and say, "Sorry, the onions are already in the sauce." or "Sorry, we can't make changes/substitutions." She just brings you the dish covered in onions and THEN says one of those things and that she decided you could just pick them out yourself. Wouldn't that kinda tick you off...cuz there was this other dish that looked almost as good and it didn't have onions at all! If we take the story away from the freaking rare burger debate...do you get it?

omg i h8 being coddled by restaurants just because a gaggel of lawyers are lurking outside waiting to pounce on the tiniest microcellular infraction. it's like one time i went to the dentist and, no matter how many times I asked, he would not use a rusty hacksaw to remove my molar. controlling, paternalistic jerk.

last time i asked for a runny omelet and got a brick of well-done eggs i threw it at the waitress and started screaming, "It's my personal autonomy!!! My personal autonomy!!!"

someone suggested i was overreacting but i asked if they had ever read the constitution and that if they thought we were really free they should try sometime to tell a chef that they prefer mayo that's been sitting out for a day. only then will they understand the full extent of the nanny state.

Joei, you still just do not get it.

Here it is in yelling: THE RESTAURANT CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT - JUST LET PEOPLE KNOW WHEN THEY ORDER, THAT THEY WON'T BE GETTING WHAT THEY JUST ORDERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Borger King: Have it our way. Your way is irrelevant.

Scott, it's been pointed out already that the law about hamburger temperature (which has been around for nearly two decades) is mentioned on the menu itself.

Jesus H. Christ Mr. Phlips!!!!! There are many things printed on the menu. The menu is not contract where people are assumed to have read the entire thing from top to bottom. I don't care if the hamburger temperature law has been around since Michigan joined the Union and was printed on the waitresses shirt - when someone orders something you can't deliver you don't just nod and grin like some stereotype Chinese retard, you tell them sorry, we can't/won't deliver. I could order a bowl of soup with moth balls in it and while I wouldn't expect to get it, I damn well expect the wait-staff to let me know I won't be.

While I can't think of a good one, many people who are not citizens of Michigan, find reasons to be in Michigan all the time. Undoubtedly the citizens of Canada, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin, all jurisdictions bordering Michigan are all up to speed on Michigan burger laws right?

Are you people really as dense as this?

So, how does food flavored with semen and urine taste, anyway?

Something tells me that isnt a retorical question.

In the butchery of cattle you are going to get some E. Coli, there isn't any great chance of avoiding it. All of you people who believe that "it doesn't occur on better cuts of meat" are just kidding yourselves. Sorry, but you are. All of you people who are eating rare burgers are willing to take your own chances, but no intelligent, informed restaurant owner is going to take that chance.

THEREFORE, expecting that any public restaurant is going to give you a really rare burger is pretty stupid.

And by the way folks, from someone who's done some hunting? Any animal's bowel lets go when you kill it. And it will be around when you butcher it. Period.

Torture time:

http://www.unapizza.com/

I'm seriously contemplating making a trip to the store right now for some real mozzarella and fresh basil.

Lujlp- that was perfect timing.

And brantl is on the money.

They aren't trying to ruin your dining experience. They are trying not to kill or injure you.

I'm sure they wouldn't serve you undercooked chicken or pork either... even if you offered to sign a paper claiming you wouldn't sue.

Even if you did sign the most brilliantly drafted legal waiver, it still wouldn't protect them from the resulting lawsuit for negligence.

Wow, your blood pressure must be just through the roof.

Do you seriously have nothing more important to worry about?

"Must I say it again?

It's their prerogative to not serve hamburgers rare.

It's my choice to not eat well-done hamburgers.

If I cannot have my hamburger the way I like it, tell me, and I will order something else. No problem."

You have now been informed of their legal liability if they serve you what you ask for, the way you ask for it, therefore they are unlikely to comply with your request, and they have it on the menu that they don't intend to serve dangerously underdone meat, so you should order something else; "must we say it again?". Brain up, Amy Alkon.

Well, I usually ask for my burger and steaks so rare it's still twitching...
I had a girl taking my order look sick and run away when I said that...
If they ask for clarification, I say that I want it cooked just enough to make it brown on both sides, and if it was cooked too much, I was sending it back...
BTW, I have been sick more times from mcdonalds fires with over cooked burgers than from rare steak and burgers....

It's their prerogative to not serve hamburgers rare.

It's my choice to not eat well-done hamburgers.

If I cannot have my hamburger the way I like it, tell me, and I will order something else. No problem.

That's what they told you on the menu. Brain up. You've heard and had this happen to you enough that you should take responsibility for yourself and basically, stop arguing with stop signs. In denial, much?