Staying aware of proper food safety at fish fry events for the Lenten season

Ash Wednesday signals the official start of the fish fry season along with the busy time of year for those whose job it is to make sure what you eat from a fish fry is safe.

In Allegheny County alone, there are around 100 permitted fish fries this Lenten season and the inspectors want to make sure you don't wind up sick. 

In churches and fire halls at lunch time and at dinner time, the fish will fry for good causes, but the inspectors from the Allegheny County Health Department's Food Safety Program are serious about what they do.

"You're doing a risk-based type of inspection looking at those more priority items, things that could cause illness as being the most important," said ACHD Food Safety Program manager Amanda Mator.

So as they inspect the fish fries with the understanding that many of the workers are volunteers and the events are temporary operations, inspectors go in looking for basics.

"Making sure that they have hand washing available, that food workers are washing their hands," Mator said.

Inspectors will then make sure that food temperatures stay in the safe zones, starting before the deep fryer is even hot.

"Maybe the fish is being thawed to when it's being cooked," Mator said. "You know, it's what the cooking temperatures are. If they are holding any food hot like, maybe their side dishes, they hold hot. So our inspectors will also check to make sure that that's all happening safely and at safe temperatures."

Inspectors even make sure cold items are held at temperatures below 40 degrees.

"If our inspectors do ever find unsafe temperatures during inspection, we do take some immediate interventions," Mator said.

Which might be helping the fish fry get things back into the safe temperature zone, but can also mean discarding items if they've been held too long at unsafe temperatures.

When you go into your local fish fry, Mator says to be observant.

"See if they're using tongs or gloves or some kind of barrier when, you know, maybe plating the food or putting it in a container for takeout," Mator said. "Making sure that they are maybe washing their hands even after handling money, and then going back to, you know, serve food."

If you see something that you think it unsafe at a fish fry, you can report it to your local health department.

Mator said that the health department has not ever had to shut down a fish fry and it's the last thing that they want to do, so they work with operators to get issued resolved quickly so it doesn't have to end that way.