In Restaurants, are Pork dishes ever described as "Medium Rare"?

[Ida Red]

Last night, as the waitress was describing the specials, she mentioned a pork dish that was served medium rare. I thought this was strange, since pork is always cooked to a doneness and not overdone. My dinning companions did not think it strange though.

[hotoynoodle]

not long ago, people cooked pork to well-done fearing tainted meat. that's not really a worry anymore, but plenty of folks still have the mindset of thinking it needs to be cooked through.

the server was being proactive.

[Covert Ops]

Right. I've seen people send back pork for not being cooked enough, and this probably happened a lot at this restaurant.

I ate at a BBQ place once that insisted it was the properties of their smoker that left the pork with a "pink ring" and that it was, in fact, cooked.

Personally I hate overcooked pork, and like bkhuna I also get thick-sliced bacon bc DH (I don't like bacon) hates it when it's overcooked.

[Bill on Capitol Hill]

I agree for the most part, but I hope we're not including bacon in the "well done is never well done" category!

[bkhuna]

Yup! Overcooked, crunchy bacon is horrible. I like thick cut bacon because I can get the outside nice and crispy while there's still a little chew left in the interior.

[strephking]

Honestly, for the most part the only meat that needs to be well done, is poultry.

[bkhuna]

Anything well done is overdone, unless you like your chicken to have the texture of Rye Crisps. As long as the juices run clear, the bird is finished.

And yes, I eat raw eggs in Ceasar Salad, medium rare pork chops, and I run in the house with scissors.

[Humbucker]

Actually the juices don't even have to run clear. A bird can be done and juices will still be colored by myoglobin.

[bkhuna]

I've run across that with brined and smoked birds. If find that it's the dark meat that's reddish, not the juices.

[bkhuna]

I for one like my pork to have a hint of pink inside. In the last couple of decades, food scientists have bred out the fat from commercial pork, leaving it a fairly dry and tasteless food. And since commercial pork isn't foraging for food but fed a strict diet, they've all but eliminated the incidence of Trichinellosis

If you check the statistics from the CDC, you’ll find that not only is Trichinellosis rare (<12 cases a year) but more folks get Trichinellosis from bear meat than pork.

[bolivianita]

Pork thats cooked til its "done" is tough and dry (mostly) and I perfer my pork to be med.
In South America where pigs are just left to wander (at least in Bolivia) and eat whatever they find I would never eat any undercooked pork but in the U.S. I feel that standards are quite high and things like trichinosis are not common anymore.
I find that more restaurants do offer the option of rare, med etc for pork but mostly I don't order pork when I'm out cuz its never done right.

[Bill on Capitol Hill]

As I understand it, trichinosis is much rarer than it used to be, at least in the U.S., and this has made ordering pork medium-rare a viable option. Good pork cooked to pink rather than beige is quite heavenly.

[Karl S]

You only need to cook past 137F (which would be rare for pork) to kill trichnosis, which is virtually unknown in US pigs bred for slaughter anyway.

[hrhboo]

Pork can be served medium rare, medium, medium well etc. I prefer it to be medium rare and request it if not asked how I would like it. It's the same with salmon, it can be cooked to any degree of doneness.