Month: March 2020

WBEZ is answering lots of your other frequently asked questions about the COVID-19 outbreak in Illinois here.

Life in Chicago has changed dramatically this past week, from schools and restaurants closing to evolving policies around social distancing and public events. As Chicagoans — and most people across the country — hunker down at home over the next few weeks, Curious City is answering questions about how to safely deal with food, cooking and eating during coronavirus.

Please keep in mind that what is known about the virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, is still evolving. This information does not constitute professional medical advice. For questions regarding your own health, always consult a physician.

How safe is it to shop at the grocery store?

The main issue with grocery shopping is your exposure to other people and contaminated hard surfaces like grocery carts, freezer handles and credit card swiping machines. Delivery services also involve some contact with people who may handle your produce.

“Stay away from other shoppers, [and] don’t hover over someone’s shoulder trying to get the last toilet paper,” said Martin Wiedmann, food safety professor at Cornell University.

For this reason, you should shop as infrequently as possible and at off-peak hours. Stores including Jewel-Osco, Dollar General, Target and Whole Foods are even creating special hours for seniors and vulnerable populations. You may also want to check with elderly neighbors to see if you can shop for them.

When you must shop, keep a safe distance from other shoppers, wear gloves, wash hands, wipe down surfaces and don’t touch your face.

Can the virus be transmitted through raw food?

As far as experts are aware, at this time, you cannot get the virus from ingesting food. However if you were to touch food that contains the virus and then touch your mouth or eyes or other mucus membranes, you could get it. But the risk is extremely low.

“The current thinking is that you really have to inhale it or touch your face and have it come into contact with your mucosa,” said Dr. Jessie Abbate, an infectious disease specialist at Institut de Recherche pour le Développement France.

Martin Wiedmann, a professor of food safety at Cornell University, said it’s important to keep the big picture in mind.

“Nothing we do right now is zero risk, and food consuming has never been zero risk,” he said. “The lowest risk today will be packaged foods and canned foods. But that doesn’t mean we should not eat fresh vegetables. We’ve got to take care of our overall health, too.”

Can the virus be transmitted through cooked food, like bread?

See above. The current information suggests that ingestion is not an infection pathway for Covid-19 whether through cooked or raw food.

“If you eat it … it goes into your stomach [where it cannot be transmitted],” said Dr. Jessie Abbate, an infectious disease specialist at Institut de Recherche pour le Développement France. “Along the way, it could potentially come into contact with your mucosa [where it might theoretically attach and infect], but it's very unlikely that this is how it transmits.”

Can the people who prepared my food transmit the virus to me?

Experts say the virus is transmitted person-to-person, through the air or on hard surfaces where it can live up several hours or days. Again, it is not thought to be transmitted through the ingestion of food, but there may be a low risk transmission through fecal contact, where a food worker does not properly wash hands. All food service professionals are supposed to be trained in safety procedures to avoid such transmission, however.

What are my takeout and delivery options, and are they safe?

In the Chicago area, a site called Dining at a Distance has been building a database of more than 1,000 local restaurants and their options for pick up, delivery and other ways to support restaurants.

If you opt for pick up, experts recommend doing so at off-peak hours when you will not likely be waiting in a room with others. If possible, wait outside away from other customers.

If you are doing delivery, you may want to opt for “no contact” delivery, where the delivery worker leaves the food at your door or other desired location indicated in your online or phone order. But don’t forget to tip. These people are doing important work in trying times. Same principles apply for grocery delivery.

After you get the takeout or delivery dishes, treat packaging as you would any surface out of your control by wiping it down, washing or discarding it, and washing your hands again. Again, all professional workers are supposed to be trained in safe food handling, but these are special times. Transfer food into your own clean dishes and enjoy.

How do I safely store food?

Although authorities urge people to avoid hoarding, many have and will continue to stock up on food during this time. Inevitably, many will buy more than home refrigerators or freezers can hold. These are some aspects of the crisis that Cornell food safety professor Martin Wiedmann is worried about. He said consumers need to be careful about refrigerating excess food in the hall or on their porch, because most of those perishables need to be kept under 40 F for safety.

He also warned against things like washing meat in the same sink where you wash vegetables, causing cross-contamination. He noted you don’t need to wash any meat you are going to cook.

“Wash your hands before you cook food. Keep raw food, raw chicken, raw meat, etc. away from produce. … Cook things at the proper temperature using USDA temperature guidelines,” he said.

He said it’s extra important to take these precautions today. “If someone gets foodborne illness now because of something else — not coronavirus — and has to go to a hospital or has to travel, that exposes them to greater risk.”

What pantry staples should I buy to make versatile recipes for my household?

Chef Sarah Stegner said her top six pantry staples for this time are dried beans, onions, nuts, oatmeal, plenty of salt and some kind of oil.

For versatile meals, she recommends roasting a chicken (at 450 F until the thigh registers 165 F), or you can buy a roast chicken to-go from a restaurant.

“I like this because you can get multiple meals out of it,” she said. “And once you have that chicken and [eat most of the meat], you take the bones and the trimmings and make a stock or soup out of it.”

You can also freeze that soup to have it ready to go in case someone in your house gets sick.

Longtime Chicago chef, baker and restaurateur Ina Pinkney suggested keeping your refrigerator full of eggs and your freezer full of frozen soup. She also suggested cheering up the household by making breakfast for dinner, something like pancakes.

“I think it’s the most comforting way to end a day,” she said.

You can find the recipe for Pinkney’s famously light, heavenly hot pancakes here. Pinkney said you can find the potato starch in the “Jewish food section of your grocery store.”

How should I cook and care for a member of the family who is sick?

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention says that when someone in the household is sick, they should stay in their room and be cared for by only one family member.

The CDC further advises people who suspect they have COVID-19 to “use a separate bathroom, if available” and “not share dishes, drinking glasses, cups, eating utensils, towels, or bedding with other people or pets in your home. After using these items, they should be washed thoroughly with soap and water.”

Authorities have not devised any special dietary recommendations for patients with the virus, but the CDC does recommend drinking plenty of fluids.

Is it OK to have friends over for dinner?

Experts say no, and the CDC recommends “limiting food sharing” in general. As unsavory as this is, we spit when we talk and touch our faces — more than we realize — and that can spread the virus, said Dr. Jessie Abbate, an infectious disease specialist at Institut de Recherche pour le Développement France. You can be carrying the virus, and be asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic.

“If you're having a dinner party with someone who is infected and shedding [spreading the] virus, you're all gonna get it,” Abbate said.

Essentially, when you have dinner with a neighbor, you’re having dinner with them and anyone they’ve had dinner with over the last two weeks.

If you still want to have people over, Abbate suggested really limiting who you invite. If you have a friend across the hall that you want to see, she said “stick with them and no one else. Now you have a slightly larger family.”

What are some ways to keep enjoying meals with other people?

While it’s hard to be isolated from friends and family, especially during mealtimes, here are some creative ways Chicagoans are keeping meals fun and social.

• Call for advice. Prairie Grass Cafe chef Sarah Stegner is manning a cooking hotline from 2 to 4 p.m. everyday at (847) 920-8437.

• Stage virtual dinner and cooking parties with friends on apps like Zoom, Google Hangouts and Facetime, like this group of Italians.

• Share a challenge with household members to come up with the most creative dishes with the staples you still have on hand.

• Finally learn how to make bread. All you need is flour, water and salt. You don’t even need yeast if you make your own sourdough starter with water and flour.

• Involve the kids. Chicago chef Cheryl Knecht Munoz is posting daily lessons and recipes you can cook with children home from school on her Sugar Beet Schoolhouse blog.

• Use the good china and light a candle, says Chicagoan Eilleen Howard Weinberg.

• Anshe Emet Day School chef Ben Randall is posting daily recipes for kids at SageBZell on Instagram

• Louisa Chu of the Chicago Tribune plans to start cooking through the Tribune recipe archives on Instagram as well.

Special thanks to our questioners

Thanks to everyone who sent in food-related coronavirus questions, including: Ned Lot, Jennifer Ptak, M.Hamilton, Helen Micari and Mary Beth N.

Fourteen-year-old Evan Robinson is a Chicago foodie — you might have even seen him on Master Chef Junior. Over the years, when he’s gone to see his orthodontist on 55th Street in Hyde Park, he’s noticed a tasty mystery.

“We always see all these different Thai restaurants,” he says, referring to Snail Thai Cuisine, Siam Thai Cuisine and Thai 55 Restaurant.. “I think that’s crazy that there are three [within] one block right here.”

Evan’s dad, Christopher, has lived in a lot of Chicago neighborhoods and says he’s noticed similar situations there, too.

“There seemed to be a Thai restaurant in almost every neighborhood,” Christopher says.

So Evan and Christopher wrote in to Curious City asking:

Why are there so many Thai restaurants in Chicago?

While there may not be a Thai restaurant in every Chicago neighborhood, there are a lot. According to Thai officials, the greater metropolitan area has about 300 Thai restaurants, but only about 10,000 Thai residents. This breaks down to about one restaurant for every 33 Thai people — twice the national average.

In the 1970s, thousands of Thai doctors, nurses and students started immigrating to the U.S., and Illinois was the third most popular destination (behind Los Angeles and New York City). A few of these immigrants started opening restaurants in the early ‘70s, and by the 80’s and ‘90s Chicago was in the middle of a Thai restaurant boom.

“It seemed like every few months a Thai restaurant popped up,” says nurse-turned-chef Chanpen Ratana, who at one point owned four Thai restaurants in Chicago.

Experts believe this big early wave of Thai immigration laid the familiarity with — and demand for — the solid Thai restaurant scene we have today.

As to why so many of these Thai immigrants decided to go into the restaurant business: Thai chefs, business scholars and government officials say it has to do with a culture of cooking and entrepreneurship. Plus, a Thai government “gastrodiplomacy” program aimed at promoting Thai cuisine across the world has given many local restaurants an extra boost.



Thais know food

Chef Arun Sampathavivat of Arun’s Thai Restaurant says a big reason for the large number of Thai restaurants in Chicago — and across the world — is that Thais are natural cooks.

“Thai people usually love to cook. They can cook anything,” Sampathavivat says. “Unlike most people who are not comfortable in the kitchen, most Thais can cook spontaneously right away. It's in them.”

While it might sound like hyperbole, several people interviewed for this story gave a similar explanation, and Sampathavivat’s own story suggests there’s some truth to it. He came to Chicago as a University of Chicago graduate student with no cooking training, then became one of the most celebrated Thai chefs in the world.

Sampathavivat also notes that many Thais are exposed to quality food culture at an early age as a part of their religious practice.

“When Thais go to temple, we bring food to offer to the Buddha, and we have to bring the best we can,” he says. “There is almost an implicit contest. Like, ‘The better I do, the higher level of heaven I can go to.’ The result is that you learn about great food at the temple even outside of your own family.”



Thai culture promotes entrepreneurship

In a 2016-2017 survey, Thailand ranked second among 65 countries in number of business owners, which carries a high social status in the country.

“Thailand is very positive toward entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship” says Ulrike Guelich of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in Bangkok. “We have 20% of the population who are starting a business and 20% who run established businesses.”

For Sampathavivat, Thai entrepreneurship comes out of his countrymen’s love of freedom.

“Thai people don’t like to be hired by anyone,” he says. “They are not [very] good employees, but they can be a good boss, because they like to have their own thing. They like to be independent.”



Despite this independent streak, Sampathavivat says, many Thais are happy to replicate the models of existing businesses and even open them in the same area.

“Thai people like to follow the kind of fashion or trend,” Sampathavivat says. “When one is doing this, the other one likes to do it, too. And before you know it [the same businesses are] all over the market just as fast as they can start.”

This may help explain some of Chicago’s Thai restaurant clusters — past and present — in Hyde Park, Lakeview, Lincoln Square, Albany Park and downtown.

The Thai government gives restaurants support

And if a culture of cooking and entrepreneurship isn’t enough?

In 2000, the Thai government launched a gastrodiplomacy program aimed at expanding tourism to Thailand by promoting authentic Thai restaurants around the world. The program funded food research and provided money to help restaurateurs design, launch, market and maintain standards in their restaurants.

Some have credited the program with the heavy presence of Thai restaurants in the U.S., but data show many were well-established long before the program started.

“We go to events like Chicago Gourmet and promote Thai food. We don’t subsidize the restaurants but just do the marketing campaigns for them,” says Chicago Thai Trade representative Usasri Kheorayab.



Part of that marketing campaign includes something called the “Thai Select” program. It highlights restaurants that maintain specific quality standards and levels of Thai authenticity. Thai commerce officials award qualifying restaurants with the “Thai Select” seals that you can find in the windows of dozens of Chicago-area Thai restaurants.

More about the question asker



Evan Robinson was born and raised in Chicago, where he’s now a freshman at William Jones College Preparatory High School. He became a finalist on MasterChef Junior when he was just 10 years old.

“That was an amazing experience, because I got to meet a lot of other kids who like cooking like I do,” he says.

After MasterChef Junior, “I got a lot of opportunities to do things like work with Whole Foods and the Mushroom Council, where I had a series of videos where we substituted meat with mushrooms for healthier dishes that tasted as amazing, if not better, than they did before.”

When he’s not at school or cooking, “I like to play video games and hang out with my friends.”

His favorite dish at Snail Thai in Hyde Park is an egg noodle dish called birds nest noodles.

But he’s alway up for trying new restaurants with his family. A big fan of eel rolls and spicy salmon rolls, Evan says he’s been eyeing “a new sushi place that opened up in Hyde Park that looks pretty cool.”

Monica Eng is a reporter for Curious City. You can follow her @MonicaEng.

Fourteen-year-old Evan Robinson is a Chicago foodie — you might have even seen him on Master Chef Junior. Over the years, when he’s gone to see his orthodontist on 55th Street in Hyde Park, he’s noticed a tasty mystery.

“We always see all these different Thai restaurants,” he says, referring to Snail Thai Cuisine, Siam Thai Cuisine and Thai 55 Restaurant.. “I think that’s crazy that there are three [within] one block right here.”

Evan’s dad, Christopher, has lived in a lot of Chicago neighborhoods and says he’s noticed similar situations there, too.

“There seemed to be a Thai restaurant in almost every neighborhood,” Christopher says.

So Evan and Christopher wrote in to Curious City asking:

Why are there so many Thai restaurants in Chicago?

While there may not be a Thai restaurant in every Chicago neighborhood, there are a lot. According to Thai officials, the greater metropolitan area has about 300 Thai restaurants, but only about 10,000 Thai residents. This breaks down to about one restaurant for every 33 Thai people — twice the national average.

In the 1970s, thousands of Thai doctors, nurses and students started immigrating to the U.S., and Illinois was the third most popular destination (behind Los Angeles and New York City). A few of these immigrants started opening restaurants in the early ‘70s, and by the 80’s and ‘90s Chicago was in the middle of a Thai restaurant boom.

“It seemed like every few months a Thai restaurant popped up,” says nurse-turned-chef Chanpen Ratana, who at one point owned four Thai restaurants in Chicago.

Experts believe this big early wave of Thai immigration laid the familiarity with — and demand for — the solid Thai restaurant scene we have today.

As to why so many of these Thai immigrants decided to go into the restaurant business: Thai chefs, business scholars and government officials say it has to do with a culture of cooking and entrepreneurship. Plus, a Thai government “gastrodiplomacy” program aimed at promoting Thai cuisine across the world has given many local restaurants an extra boost.



Thais know food

Chef Arun Sampathavivat of Arun’s Thai Restaurant says a big reason for the large number of Thai restaurants in Chicago — and across the world — is that Thais are natural cooks.

“Thai people usually love to cook. They can cook anything,” Sampathavivat says. “Unlike most people who are not comfortable in the kitchen, most Thais can cook spontaneously right away. It's in them.”

While it might sound like hyperbole, several people interviewed for this story gave a similar explanation, and Sampathavivat’s own story suggests there’s some truth to it. He came to Chicago as a University of Chicago graduate student with no cooking training, then became one of the most celebrated Thai chefs in the world.

Sampathavivat also notes that many Thais are exposed to quality food culture at an early age as a part of their religious practice.

“When Thais go to temple, we bring food to offer to the Buddha, and we have to bring the best we can,” he says. “There is almost an implicit contest. Like, ‘The better I do, the higher level of heaven I can go to.’ The result is that you learn about great food at the temple even outside of your own family.”



Thai culture promotes entrepreneurship

In a 2016-2017 survey, Thailand ranked second among 65 countries in number of business owners, which carries a high social status in the country.

“Thailand is very positive toward entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship” says Ulrike Guelich of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in Bangkok. “We have 20% of the population who are starting a business and 20% who run established businesses.”

For Sampathavivat, Thai entrepreneurship comes out of his countrymen’s love of freedom.

“Thai people don’t like to be hired by anyone,” he says. “They are not [very] good employees, but they can be a good boss, because they like to have their own thing. They like to be independent.”



Despite this independent streak, Sampathavivat says, many Thais are happy to replicate the models of existing businesses and even open them in the same area.

“Thai people like to follow the kind of fashion or trend,” Sampathavivat says. “When one is doing this, the other one likes to do it, too. And before you know it [the same businesses are] all over the market just as fast as they can start.”

This may help explain some of Chicago’s Thai restaurant clusters — past and present — in Hyde Park, Lakeview, Lincoln Square, Albany Park and downtown.

The Thai government gives restaurants support

And if a culture of cooking and entrepreneurship isn’t enough?

In 2000, the Thai government launched a gastrodiplomacy program aimed at expanding tourism to Thailand by promoting authentic Thai restaurants around the world. The program funded food research and provided money to help restaurateurs design, launch, market and maintain standards in their restaurants.

Some have credited the program with the heavy presence of Thai restaurants in the U.S., but data show many were well-established long before the program started.

“We go to events like Chicago Gourmet and promote Thai food. We don’t subsidize the restaurants but just do the marketing campaigns for them,” says Chicago Thai Trade representative Usasri Kheorayab.



Part of that marketing campaign includes something called the “Thai Select” program. It highlights restaurants that maintain specific quality standards and levels of Thai authenticity. Thai commerce officials award qualifying restaurants with the “Thai Select” seals that you can find in the windows of dozens of Chicago-area Thai restaurants.

More about the question asker



Evan Robinson was born and raised in Chicago, where he’s now a freshman at William Jones College Preparatory High School. He became a finalist on MasterChef Junior when he was just 10 years old.

“That was an amazing experience, because I got to meet a lot of other kids who like cooking like I do,” he says.

After MasterChef Junior, “I got a lot of opportunities to do things like work with Whole Foods and the Mushroom Council, where I had a series of videos where we substituted meat with mushrooms for healthier dishes that tasted as amazing, if not better, than they did before.”

When he’s not at school or cooking, “I like to play video games and hang out with my friends.”

His favorite dish at Snail Thai in Hyde Park is an egg noodle dish called birds nest noodles.

But he’s alway up for trying new restaurants with his family. A big fan of eel rolls and spicy salmon rolls, Evan says he’s been eyeing “a new sushi place that opened up in Hyde Park that looks pretty cool.”

Monica Eng is a reporter for Curious City. You can follow her @MonicaEng.