'Cannibal sandwiches' sicken residents in Midwest

[Baitball Blogger]

There goes Cybil Sheperd's Commercial Contract.

(Reuters) - Residents in the upper Midwest should ditch their seasonal tradition of eating "cannibal sandwiches" made of raw ground beef, health officials warned, citing multiple outbreaks of foodborne illnesses since the 1970s and cases last year.

Gobbling up raw ground beef spread on sandwich bread or crackers with onions and other seasoning led to more than 50 cases of foodborne illness in 1972, 1978 and 1994 in Wisconsin, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in a report released this week.

Raw beef "cannibal sandwiches" have also been linked to at least four cases, and possibly more than a dozen, of sickness tied to E. Coli bacteria in the central region of Wisconsin over the 2012 winter holiday season, the CDC said.

The bacteria can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps and, in the most severe cases, kidney failure.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-sandwich-20131206,0,2472093.story

[painesghost]

1. Wouldn't seem like that hard of a tradition to give up.

Being a vegetarian ground beef doesn't sound appealing anyway, but raw ground beef. Yuck. It's like people that pay big bucks for Steak Tartare in a French restaurant. You'd have to pay me to eat that crap.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Good Christ, if you must do it, swish it around in your mouth with some VERY strong liquor.

Seriously. That's one thing I'll say for strong drink; it'll kill a lot of other things.

[pansypoo53219]

3. i never joined in this like pickled herring. but we get butcher meat. no supermarket meat.

i just do not eat pink meat.

[HereSince1628]

4. What sort of person calls steak tartare 'cannibal sandwich?'

I suppose the sort that would use a tube of IBP frozen mix pink slime and ground beef bits to make it.

[Drahthaardogs]

5. They also call it "Tiger Meat"

they even serve it in bars around the holidays. Think like little hole in the wall bars, no Applebee's. It is a German-American thing. First time I ever saw it was when I moved to the midwest.

[Skidmore]

6. I was born in the midwest and have lived most of my life here

and this thread is the first time I have ever heard of this. Sounds like some hazing ritual run amuk.

[HereSince1628]

7. apparently it's also traditional in northern France

What could possibly go wrong when an upscale food is done on the cheap for working class folks looking to put something crude into the holiday? Well, really -shit- could go wrong.

There isn't anything E. coli risk with steak tartare that preventing bacterial contamination by manure splashing doesn't solve. But since ALL commercially ground beef should be considered contaminated, people who know don't grab a tube of the ground pink stuff at Walmart.

[xmas74]

8. I haven't heard of a cannibal sandwich in years.

My dad used to eat them every year around the holidays. I've never heard of anyone eating them outside of Wisconsin.

It used to be the bar owner would go to the local butcher and tell them they were making cannibal sandwiches. The butcher would give them good quality meat and the bar owner would often come back with a free sandwich for the butcher. (I'm telling you-it was considered a delicacy when I was growing up.) Nowadays, it's getting harder and harder to find a butcher and more bars are owned by corporations or the owners are offsite. So, instead of the owner who grew up with the sandwich and knew exactly what it should look and taste like, you have people who've never been around them following a recipe probably found somewhere online and buying the cheapest cuts of meat possibly at a Supercenter or through Sysco.

It's a recipe for disaster.

http://gr82bme.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Make-A-Cannibal-Sandwich

[sendero]

9. There is a simple way to do this safely..

.... buy a nice steak.

Rinse it thoroughly in cold water.

Grind it.

Eat it.

If you buy meat that is already ground, you had better cook it really well done.

[Paladin]

10. Sorry, I have very little sympathy for these people.

If you're going to consume raw ground beef, you ought to be prepared for the possible consequences. Trusting your health to the raw output of the meat packing industry is just stupid.

[HereSince1628]

11. It's odd that the article points out just the risk of E. coli.

Steake tartare is usually bound together with raw egg yolk. The frequency of risk of salmonella and it's variant strains in raw eggs is not zero.