The Washington Post - 07.08.2019

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E3

main course of lamb rib — just a

few bites of meat, really —

makes me question its $45 price.

Cocktails, in contrast, are

consistent and delicious. Bar

director Britt Ingalls seems to

know just what a lot of us want

to drink in hot weather, and she

sometimes delivers the goods

herself. Ingalls rethinks the

District’s native cocktail, the

rickey, with the herbaceous

green spiced rum produced by

local craftsman To dd Thrasher,

and Riverdale Orchard fairly

sings with its combination of

pear eau de vie, yellow

Chartreuse, honey and lemon

juice.

For the moment, the

backstory bests reality at

Shilling Canning Company. As

much as I want to root for its

success, the kitchen needs to

nail more of its selections for me

to willingly gravitate to the

dining room rather than the bar.

[email protected]

360 Water St. SE. 202-554-7 47 4.

shillingcanning.com. Entr ees, $16 to

$45.

Sh illing dusts the seafood with

corn flour and crisps them in

cast-iron skillets he buys on the

Eastern Shore. The pleasing

entree is finished with hot-

sauced honey and benne seeds.

Ta sting of the season, blueberry

crumble made me glad to have

waited to ask for the check.

If only there were more such

good times on the menu. I

realize it’s early in the life of the

newcomer, but Shilling Canning

Company is sending out too

many mistakes for a business

that was announced two years

ago and presumably had time to

polish its ideas. Clams on a bed

of ice delivered grit in every bite,

and a sourdough flatbread

decked out in juicy tomatoes

and garlic confit was notable

mostly for its pale, underbaked

crust. What’s billed as deviled

ham in an appetizer of deviled

eggs tastes of salt more than

anything else, and a fan of sliced

pork with grilled peaches and

roasted carrots (curious

platemates) appeared to have

surrendered its juices to the

heat where it was overcooked. A

Reid Shilling was
a sous-chef at the
beloved Dabney
in Blagden Alley
before he opened
Shilling Canning
Company in Navy Yard. But the
Baltimore native says “that was
one year on a 21-year résumé.”
His first solo restaurant was
shaped even more by longer
stints at the Hillstone
Restaurant Group, the company
behind Houston’s, and Bouchon
Bistro, part of the Thomas
Keller empire in Northern
California — “different ends of
the spectrum,” s ays Shilling, 37,
who values the lessons in
efficiency and consistency at
both.
Even so, it’s hard not to note
the similarities between Shilling
Canning Company and the
Dabney, personal expressions of
the Mid-Atlantic that come with
impressive heating elements: a
massive hearth that draws eyes
to the fire at the senior dining
destination and a copper-topped
oven fueled with a mix of oak,
hickory and cherry wood at the
upstart. Shilling Canning
Company acknowledges the
chef’s family’s onetime business
in Carroll County, Md. From
1935 to 1958, the farmers canned
what they grew, including peas,
tomatoes, corn and green beans.
The Shilling brand lives on in
the form of some old vegetable
cans on display at the
restaurant, where the chef’s
wife, Sara Quinteros-Shilling,
serves as director of business
development.
The dining room, awash in
natural light and polished
concrete floors, benefits from
little comforts and cheffy
touches. Notice the pillows on
the banquettes and the curing
room currently aging duck
breasts? Planters outside the
restaurant contain herbs
Shilling cuts just ahead of
dinner service to use on his
plates. They are put to fragrant
use in a natural art installation
of heirloom tomatoes,
cucumbers and lightly battered
squash that the menu calls
Vines & Nightshades.
“I’m partial to blue,” s ays
Shilling, whose servers sport
shirts and aprons in different
shades of the color and whose
tables are set with blue water
glasses. The hue (and perhaps
the map of the Chesapeake Bay
facing me from a wall) makes
me think of water, which leads
me to order seafood. Set off with
bits of summery peaches and
smoky Aleppo pepper, a crudo of
scallops nevertheless projects
the clean appeal of the featured
attraction. Now is the time to fill
up on soft-shell crabs, so here
they come, too, atop a bowl of
braised greens and creamy grits.

With the lid finally off at Shilling Canning Company, time to focus on what’s inside

PHOTOS BY LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Tom
Sietsema

FIRST BITE

BY SALLY SQUIRES

When North Carolina State
University microbiologist Benja-
min Chapman makes a smoothie,
he, like many of us, uses frozen
berries. But first, Chapman mi-
crowaves his frozen berries to
boiling and then refreezes them
before tossing them into the
blender.
Why the extra steps? Chapman
wants to be sure that there are no
pathogens in the frozen berries
that could cause a foodborne ill-
ness for him or his family.
“What I am doing may be over-
kill, but it makes me feel good,”
says Chapman, who has been
making smoothies this way for at
least eight years, since his chil-
dren were infants and toddlers. “I
don’t have any thoughts that the
berries are super high-risk to
making us sick. But to me, it is
something that is quick and easy
to do. It’s my own risk manage-
ment.”
Nor is he alone in taking extra
precautions with frozen berries.
In May, the Food and Drug
Administration announced that it
began sampling frozen berries
last fall to look for hepatitis A and
norovirus, two of the most com-
mon foodborne illnesses. The fed-
eral agency said that it plans to
test 2,000 samples over the next
18 months from both domestic
and imported sources, including
food processors, distribution cen-
ters, warehouses and retailers,
such as grocery stores.
As a result of this effort, there
have already been two recent re-
calls of frozen berries announced
by the FDA. They involved frozen
blackberries and blended berries
that were found to contain parts

of the hepatitis A virus. These

products were made by To wnsend

Farms and sold by Kroger and

Costco. No outbreaks of hepati-

tis A have been linked to the

frozen berries.

Nor does the recall mean that

any of the berries contained

whole, live hepatitis A virus.

“These are tests for the DNA of

these organisms,” said micro-

biologist Donald Schaffner, direc-

tor of the Center for Advanced

Food Te chnology at Rutgers Uni-

versity. “It is not an indication

that these berries contain the liv-

ing or intact virus that can make

people sick. That said, a recall is

the right thing to do.”

Schaffner predicts that there

will be more recalls of frozen

berries but doesn’t expect that

there will be a lot of foodborne

illness outbreaks linked to berries

“based on what we have seen

historically in the United States.”

He said he would hate for con-

sumers to think that frozen ber-

ries are not safe.

“We want people to eat more

fruit and vegetables,” s aid Schaff-

ner, who co-hosts the Food Safety

Ta lk podcast with Chapman and

is an editor of the journal of

Applied and Environmental Mi-

crobiology. “We want people to

eat berries. I am not going to

change my berry-eating con-

sumption because of this, because

we know that these are safe,

healthy foods.”

“Frozen berries have a long

history of safe use in the United

States,” said Alison Bodor, presi-

dent and CEO of the American

Frozen Fruit Institute (AFFI), a

national trade association for the

frozen food and beverage indus-

try. “AFFI supports the U.S. Food

and Drug Administration’s sam-

pling assignment to increase the

understanding of the risk of hepa-

titis A and norovirus in frozen

berries.”

Bodor adds that “most frozen

foods are intended to be cooked,

and the safest way to consume

any product is to carefully follow

the package cooking or prepara-

tion instructions.” However, fro-

zen fruits do not require cooking

and “are intended to be thawed

and consumed right out of the

bag.”

When it comes to foodborne

illnesses, most people think of the

culprits being undercooked ham-

burgers or fresh produce, such as

spinach, romaine and canta-

loupe. All have been fingered as

the sources of recent foodborne

illness outbreaks, including sal-

monella and E. coli.

Lesser known and lower in

number — but still important —

are a handful of foodborne illness

outbreaks that have also been tied

to frozen berries. A ccording to the

FDA, frozen berries caused three

hepatitis A outbreaks and one

norovirus outbreak in the United

States from 1997 to 2016. Nearly

550 people were sickened and 53

had to be hospitalized. There

were no reported deaths.

What worries microbiologists

is that in Europe, frozen berries

have caused a much greater food-

borne illness problem. Between

2013 and 2014, mixed frozen ber-

ries caused a hepatitis A outbreak

that sickened more than 1,500

people.

“A s a scientific community, I

don’t think that we understand

the connection between viruses

and frozen berries,” Schaffner

said. “Why is there that hotspot

connection? The FDA has now

embarked on this sampling trial

to try to give us more information

to try to figure out what the risk

actually is.”

It might seem that freezing

should kill these sometimes dead-

ly diseases. But cold temperatures

are actually how microbiologists

preserve hepatitis, norovirus and

other foodborne microorganisms

to study in the lab. “Freezing

doesn’t kill them, and they die

very, very slowly in the freezer,”

Schaffner said. He added: “So ba-

sically, there are lots of things that

can make you sick in the freezer.”

This is why Chapman always

cooks frozen vegetables for his

smoothies or any other dish,

even if the recipe calls for just

thawing in the refrigerator be-

fore adding them uncooked to

dishes.

“Easily accessible recipes and

food suggestions online say that

if you want to make a smoothie

even more healthy, take these

frozen vegetables and include

them without cooking them,”

said Chapman, who writes the

Barf Blog about food safety and

serves as a scientific adviser to

the American Frozen Food Insti-

tute. “That is a much riskier

situation than with frozen ber-

ries.”

Chapman recalls how his chil-

dren’s p ediatrician recommended

that uncooked frozen peas could

be used to help soothe them while

teething. “A s a food safety profes-

sional, I don’t expect that frozen

peas are ready-to-eat,” he said.

“Having a health professional tell

me and presumably many other

people that this is a ready-to-eat

product is really concerning.”

It is so much riskier because

the food processing industry

doesn’t treat frozen vegetables as

ready-to-eat foods. As Chapman

said, “They are expecting us, the

consumers, to cook them.”

Said the AFFI’s Bodor: “The

bottom line is frozen foods vary

and are specifically labeled in

accordance with food safety stan-

dards and regulations.”

So what can you do to reduce

your risk of contracting a food-

borne illnesses from frozen food?

Here are five tips that food safety

experts not only recommend but

also say they follow in their own

kitchens.

Five tips for frozen food

1. Use a probe digital ther-
mometer to check the internal
temperature of all foods to ensure
they reach the recommended in-
ternal temperatures.
2. Follow the cooking instruc-
tions on all frozen food and al-
ways cook frozen vegetables,
which have been linked to some
foodborne illness recalls.
3. Keep your freezer packed
and don’t open the door except
when needed to help ensure a
constant temperature and less air
flow, which can warm foods.
4. To take extra precautions, as
Chapman does: Microwave fro-
zen fruit, stir and check that the
temperature eclipses 200 degrees
before using in recipes or refreez-
ing, especially when using these
ingredients in foods served to the
very young, elderly, pregnant
women or anyone with a compro-
mised immune system.
5. Download the free USDA
Foodkeeper app available for
Apple and Android devices.

Sq uires is a former Washington Post

reporter who now writes the Lean

Plate Club blog.

As the FDA examines safety of frozen produce, here’s how to take precautions

Thorough cooking is

your best bet, according

to food safety experts

DEB LINDSEY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Frozen berries are common in smoothies. From 1997 to 201 6, four

foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States were caused by

frozen berries, according to the FDA.

TOP: The soft-shell crab with grits, braised greens and hot honey at Shilling Canning Company in Navy

Yard. The name acknowledges the onetime vegetable business in Carroll County, Md., of chef Reid

Shilling’s family. ABOVE: Chef de partie Garrett Brower shucks local oysters.