The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [39]
Most bacteria and viruses are destroyed by cooking, which is why the federal Food and Drug Administration recommends that fish be cooked to 145 degrees Fahrenheit or until it flakes easily at the center near the bone; oysters and clams should be boiled for four to six minutes. These are reliable recipes for cataclysmically overcooked seafood.
Raw shellfish is where most of the danger lurks. In 1991 the FDA conducted a risk assessment of fish and shellfish in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and discovered that, when raw or partially cooked mollusks (mussels, clams, and oysters) are excluded, only one illness results from every two million servings of seafood. This is an extremely low number compared to the danger of eating chicken, with one illness in every twenty-five thousand servings.
But when raw or partially cooked shellfish is added in, the risk jumps eightfold. Raw clams, oysters, and mussels account for 85 percent of all seafood-borne illnesses. One in every two thousand servings of raw mollusks is likely to make somebody ill.
As high as this number seems, it means that if you eat a plate of raw oysters every week, you will get sick once in forty years or twice in a full and happy lifetime. And you can reduce the risk further by avoiding the main threat—raw mollusks taken from March to October in the Gulf of Mexico, when they are likely to be infected with Vibrio vulnificus. The warmer the water and the higher the temperature at which oysters are shipped and stored, the greater the danger. This is the principal rationale for the old rule of thumb that oysters should be eaten only in months whose name contains an r, because these are the cold-weather months from September through April. (A second reason is epicurean: oysters spawn in warmer weather, depleting their tasty glycogen and losing their succulence.) These days, Gulf oysters are safe, if at all, only from November through February.
For the very young, the very old, and people with weakened immune systems, including those who are HIV-positive, an infection by Vibrio vulnificus from a contaminated oyster can lead to death. But for most diners, the worst outcome is a day or two of unpleasant and unsightly gastrointestinal distress.
If raw shellfish makes you sick once in every two thousand servings, how does this compare to the hazards of going skiing? The statistics are elusive—the skiing industry does not encourage the collection and publication of data. But there seems to be general agreement that a substantial injury occurs once in every 250 days of skiing or, at the least, once in 400. These include leg fractures, spine fractures, contusions, lacerations, and knee injuries. A study in Munich found at least one minor injury in every 59 days of skiing and a really serious disaster in every 500; it defined “serious” as meaning that the skier would be off the slopes for at least 3 days. My last bad oyster kept me from table for only one. And most accident surveys leave out gondola crashes, skiers’ smashing into each other in the subarctic cold; the danger of radiation (the yearly risk of cancer from cosmic rays is two-thirds greater at the altitude of Denver than at sea level, where oysters live); and injuries that blossom after the skier returns home, like the newly popular sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament of the metacar-pophalangeal joint of the thumb. To say that a day of skiing is ten times more dangerous than a delicious plate of oysters is, I think, an act of generosity to the sport and its hapless participants.
Ski apologists point out that skiers suffer fewer fatalities than swimmers, cyclists, or equestrians, and that skiing is, on an hourly basis, no more dangerous than junior-high-school football. This