re: Hundreds sick from Fund Raiser Jambalaya

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I guess I'm going to have to add some food safety tips to the calculator.

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leading to a shite ton of contaminated food

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Ah, I don't know. Since tomatoes are acidic, they would make the jambalaya less likely to harbor bacteria.

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More Info - It's Salmonella

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Food handling is serious business.

As it relates to a jambalaya, a food often cooked outdoors, preventing cross contamination isn't easy, but manageable.

Don't thaw meats at room temperature.
Don't handle raw ingredients and then utensils and seasonings without a barrier.
Boil that stuff for a few minutes before adding rice.
Don't use the same utensils on raw and cooked food without washing.
Keep chopping/work surfaces cleaned and disinfected.
Ditch the cole slaw. Serve a green salad with an oil based dressing (sensation.)
People that handle money, shouldn't handle food.

Don't lift the lid! An arse whooping is almost as bad a salmonella.

Sumbitch that made it probably works for Charmin or Pepto Bismol .

Came here to suggest Bacilus cereus... but now I see Salmonela was confirmed.

Frank: I went too far. I over seasoned it. Men were keeling over all around me. I can still hear the retching, the screaming. I sent sixteen of my own men to the latrines that night. They were just boys.

I wouldn't do this with anything others have cooked, but I know my own was all cooked properly.

If the lid was on, it's like canning

Now if my mother in law cooked it, I eat about 10 minutes after it is done, that's it.

Good idea!
When cooking big batches of jambalaya away from good refrigeration I smoke the chicken thighs so I'm not dealing with raw chicken. Everything I use that needs refrigeration stays on ice. Even onions, celery and bell peppers I chop ahead of time goes on ice including stocks. I'm extremely cautious about stuff like that.

Back in the 1980's the plant I was working at in Geismar served a Christmas Jambalaya from a well known Ascension Parish caterer. Every person that ate that day (including the nightshift) got deathly ill. Although never officially announced, I heard from our plant medical folks that apparently the pork was bad. I was spewing out both ends for about a week. Couldn't eat Christmas dinner, and on the drive to my New Mexico ski trip stopped at pretty much every rest stop across all 895 miles of I-10 in Texas. There were several employees hospitalized for dehydration, not surprising since anything I put into my body for that week came right back and/or passed straight through.