Ick. I know I'm different than most. I only like my red meat cooked through. I do not want flacid. I have teeth and want to chew. I want to taste the done meaty flavor you don't get with undercooked. I do not want to taste copper and/or iron. Some on TV call it ”beautiful minerality”. I say if I want to taste metal, I'll lick a pot. I can't stand the toughness of not quite done chicken. I also don't much care for brined or otherwise wetted to make it pretend juicy chicken. I want tender and juicy, not rubbery or wet. And if it comes down to it, I'd rather have over and stringy (but not so over it's gummy) than under and tough/rubbery. But, I don't actually like pork unless it's cured or sauced and falling off the bone, so I can't speak to your OP, and I'm mostly allergic to fin fish, so no opinion. OTOH, I love raw vegetables. Last night, was shuck your own raw English peas. I like the (sublte) flavor of lettuce. Cooked veg are nice too. ;) I even like veggies that are overcooked, like in stew base, or pan roasts.

The only under cooked meats we eat is our steaks. We both like ours with a hint of pink. We used to like them rare but have evolved into liking them with just a hint of pink. So, medium well? I guess that's what you call it. Maybe medium is OK too. Just don't like them bleeding.

All other meats need to be cooked fully for us. We like our dark meat chicken cooked until it falls off the bones! :)

The rare time I have steak, I want it rare. Pork, properly done, though not dry. Lamb the slightest pink. Chicken always properly done, though like pork, not dry. Beef tartare is only acceptibly safe if the meat is not industrially raised and you grind it from a steak in your kitchen. Othewise, never.

I rarely cook beef other than brisket and that gets smoked. Pork should have a little pink in the center. Chicken should never be bloody.

All meat cooked all the way through but not overdone. Exception is steak, which I like medium rare. And I do admit to liking raw ground beef -- I always taste my hamburger and meatball mix before cooking.

It greatly depends on the dish, and to an extent, the cut of meat. Beef can range from raw to stewed for several hours till it falls apart. Pork tends to be fully cooked, but there are some things where a bit of pink is nice. Lamb is often nice with a touch of pink in a whole cut, but always fully cooked when it's a mince or grind. Mostly due to the kind of dish it goes in. Fowl tends to be fully cooked. Fish can range from raw to fully cooked. Raw oysters are OK on occasion, but most of the rest of the water critters that aren't fish tend to be fully cooked.

Trichinonosis is still a thing. It is really, really rare in commercial pork, mostly due to regulations in how pigs are raised. Almost all the cases that do get reported now are from game meat, like boar or bear, that isn't fully cooked. Or the rare farmer-family that fed their pig wrong, and it wasn't fully cooked.

Looking at google images for steak doneness charts, I’m surprised at how much they vary despite supposedly representing the same temperature ranges. Personally I find this one a pretty good representation:

At a steakhouse I usually order medium/medium-rare, hoping for what would be the line between the two. It follows that at home, I’m aiming for 130° though I’m ok a few degrees +/-.

For a lean cut of pork I aim to just reach 145°, since that temp has been deemed safe. That will often be somewhat rosy which is fine, but unlike steak I cannot force myself to eat pork with a raw texture.

Poultry, I want it cooked. 160° is my aim for white meat, dark can stand a few more degrees without drying out. I’ve done breasts at lower temperatures SV which has produced interesting results, but not interesting enough to have me take this route often.

I like beef and lamb med rare. Pork tenderloin I like cooked through -just, with maybe a slight tinge or hint of pink. When I grew up, pork was always well cooked and often braised to keep it moist, so I still love a well cooked pork roast or chop with some gravy, or pulled pork.

Salmon I like cooked until JUST not translucent or translucent enough when taken off the heat that it will finish cooking while resting. I really dislike it cooked too much. Other fish I like cooked through. No raw oysters, sushi or beef tartar for me.

I usually sous vide beef to 125F or so.

I've never tried SV'ing lean pork, but think I will start. Good way to learn temps and make different donenesses for the clamoring household hordes (I have two immersion SV sticks).

Olychick, I thought of this topic as I was making last night's dinner. It was thick boneless pork chops, seared on one side just until slightly browned, then braised in stock, butter, and cream later thickened to a gravy. Cooking at a friend's so it was a bit chaotic but turned out okay.

Lean pork cuts have the same problem as chicken breast, to me - they aren't that tasty "out of the box", get dry, and need all kinds of flavor enhancement. I've gradually gotten better at chicken and want to learn the same for pork chops. Thinking i) brine, ii) SV in tasty liquid, iii) torch to sear.

Anyone pierce the chop to let the tasty braising liquid in, or does that just dry the pork out more?

I used to have syringes and needles for the purpose of injecting tasty liquid into meat. They've all disappeared (alarming?) but I recall it never worked that well.

We do not eat lamb. He would not touch it. We did eat venison, but he not longer hunts.

Beef steaks are easy, his go on first for well done, mine go on later for rare.

Pork chops same, except well for both. Maybe a little less well for me. Chicken same, no pink on chicken. Hamburgers well. Fish not dry, but done. No raw fish, no raw oysters. Years ago would of been okay, oceans are too polluted now.

Pork roast, beef roast, ribs, etc. cooked until fall off bone.

@John Liu, when I was growing up, pork roasts, steaks and chops were much fattier and so we would brown the chops in cast iron, add some liquid, like a bit of water and bouillon cube, cover and cook until they almost fell apart. I've tried that a couple of times in the last decade or two and they never fall apart, they just get tougher and chewier. No matter how long I cook them. One of the downsides to the 'new white meat.' If I want dry, chewy white meat, I can do that with chicken breasts!

Yeah, the modern lean pig is not a culinary improvement. I wonder if it is possible to find old-style pigs, or if they all died out when we went to muscly, lean pigs? Maybe we'll have to import oink from other countries.

The Rise and Fall of the Great American Hog - Modern Farmer

I have issues with chickens. I buy heirlooms. Some are okay. Some harder to find are really good. I got talked into a Jidori. It wasn't too big, but tough like an oldster, and not particularly tasty. It's harder to get bison than 10 yearsago, but what they had then was great, and tasted like beef used to. Leaner and flavorful.

Good luck on the pig quest.

Ehh, I am too lazy and too cheap to hunt for specialty breeds. My theory is that cooking technique can turn a modern stringy marathon running pig into the jiggly fatty couch potato swill snuffling porker of our youth. And if not, it was fun trying!

I like my steaks rare, I'll even eat blue if that's how it comes. Burgers a little pink, mince is safer here than in the US. Lamb definitely very pink. Chicken cooked through but only just. (My chicken breasts are always juicy.) Fish cooked through and white. (I don't care for fresh tuna or salmon.) Pork just a whisper of pink so it's still juicy. Trichinosis is not a thing here.

I buy pork at the Farmer's Market here in Oly from these folks. I really have only purchased ground sausage and country style ribs from them because I just never think to try the pork chops and a roast is too much for a household of one - most of my friends with whom I share meals don't eat pork. But their other cuts do look good. Maybe I'll give them a go for some pork chops.

Link below:

Heritage Pork

I buy heritage pork from a local shop that carries only grass fed and grass finished meats, all raised locally from several different farms--beef, pork, poultry, lamb, and they have their own butcher/chef and also sell magnificent fresh sausages. It's all very expensive, but I'd rather eat much less meat of very high quality than the industrially raised stuff, both for health reasons and the humane care of the animals. Actually, I buy my chicken directly at the farm from one of the suppliers of poultry to the store.

Anyone interested in mail order of such meat and some very interesting info about this very large farm should check out White Oak pastures. It's a fascinating story.

"...the modern lean pig is not a culinary improvement."

I completely disagree. I wouldn't eat pork for the longest time after I was married and moved out because I had such a strong childhood memory of walking into the house on a cold day and getting bowled over by the stench of my mother cooking a fatty pork roast. It made me want to gag. Still does when I think about it. Lean pork smells nothing like that, even roasts are much leaner nowadays.

If grilling pork chops or tenderloin, I coat in evoo before cooking and use a meat thermometer. They are never dry. I agree about the smell of the old pork of my childhood.

I would like to try lamb, but all the recipes seem to use a lot of spices and to cook no more than medium rare. Hubby thinks salt and pepper are the only spices to use and he will NOT eat meat the least shade of pink.

It has taken over 50 years to get him from FOAS shoe leather steak to just a well done steak! I eat my steak rare.

Lamb doesn't need spices, though garlic does go well cut into slivers and pushed into slits on a roasting leg. And you can cook it to past pink, it's just not as good IMO.

I love lamb. I don't like the garlic shoved in kind, or mint with it, and I can enjoy it with rosemary, but like it better without. Spice bombs are for lower quality meat. I recently obtained a very meaty, American rack, double cut into chops. You don't want to know what it cost, but it was excellent. I use a ribbed grill plate in the oven, electric fancy element on broil. Flip partway through. Cooked to desired doneness, A little sea salt from the grinder to finish. That's it. Just salt. It doesn't really need salt, but salt is nice. I might use a little Simply Heinz ketchup out of nostalgia for flavors of my childhood, but that's very personal, and the others think I'm weird (I don't mind—double cut rib lamb chops are my all time favorite food, naked or dressed).

The trick is buy really good lamb, and if you're unsure how you like it, do a tester and try it at different temperatures. The whole cult of medium-rare started in restaurants where it's easy enough to put expensive meat back on the fire, but if it's over, it has to be thrown to the dogs, or the trash. When red meat was inexpensive and chickens were pricey, Americans generally preferred their beef Medium, and lamb Medium-well. Learn your own druthers.

New Zealand lamb tends to be small and sweet. Australian lamb is good and kind of middling. I prefer good American lamb, but when it's labelled ”Colorado” I'm alway disappointed. YMMV.

A good recipe from the annals of time for a large leg of lamb, if you don't just want to cook it plain, is to butterfly it and poke holes all over with an ice pick or metal skewer. Put it in a deep roating pot or dutch oven with a whole head of garlic sliced into slivers, and a whole bottle of table quality red wine. Cover and cook low and slow, basting every 15 min., for about three hours. Garlic does go well with lamb, but when you insert it, it changes the flavor of the meat, rather than just going with it.

DD SWMBO and I went to a book sale at the Scio library. Scio is a little town in Oregon and the self-proclaimed center of "covered bridge territory". It happened to be the "Lamb Festival" so we watched the parade and Lamb Queen, admired lambs in the petting zoo, and ate lamb burgers and lamb tacos. A great day!

Lamb is such a tasty meat. There is no cut of lamb that isn't yummy, and cooking is straightforward. I don't even mind medium cooked lamb, through prefer it med-rare.

We have lamb fairly often, including last night…marinated and grilled part of a boneless leg for the two of us. Final temp was about 135. I marinated it all day in this, reducing amounts accordingly for about 1 1/3 lbs. lamb. This is enough for about 4-5 lbs.

1 cup dry red wine
3/4 cup soy sauce
4 large cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
2 T. fresh rosemary, or 1 tsp. dried
1 T. coarsely ground black pepper

No, lamb would not work for us at all , thanks.

Sherry, I'm not a fan of lamb either, although Elery loves it. He likes it cooked about medium, still a bit pink.

Heritage pork is still readily available and I can buy a pig from a neighbor and have it processed. There's enough fat on that for me to render lard, and unlike porkchop, I prefer the fattier pork steak and shoulder roasts to other, more lean cuts. I do want it cooked just past the pink stage, so completely done but not overdone. I also think pork chops are the most over rated cut of meat ever, I've never had one that wasn't bland, dry or stringy, or all three.

Chicken we raise ourselves but I still want it well done, no pink in chicken. We also raise grass fed beef and I want it extremely rare, my kids used to call it "warm raw". I want it warm in the middle, crusty on the outside, a screaming hot cast iron pan does that to my specifications. Elery would like his leaning more toward medium rare, LOL.

Fish I do want well done, whether it's salmon or lake perch. I had sashimi in California and it was good, but I like well done fish better. Batter dipped and deep fried is best for me. :-)

How about game meats? Elery loves venison, but with Chronic Wasting Disease, TB and all the other things going through the herd here, it's well done by the time I'm done cooking it although it's a lean meat and is better done medium, leaning into rare.

Annie