Error management and chickens

Cooking a chicken is a tricky job.  Overcook it and it will be dry and unpalatable.  Undercook it and the enteric consequences can be dire.  Often people will tend toward dryness in order to avoid the latter, and that is because the costs of that error are not as hefty as the other - so there is an asymmetric risk.

Today, as is traditional on a Sunday, we had a roast chicken and all the trimmings.  My wife cooked.  She is a bolder person than I and a better cook. When I roast chicken I run the standard clear fluid (CF) test a number of times across a selection of areas on the chicken, and I like to do this in her presence for inter-rater benefits.  If she concurs with my decision I act on it.  If not a new course of action is discussed and the chicken usually goes back in the oven

Today, as I approached the task of carving, she asked me if I thought it was done: a role reversal.  This made me immediately anxious and I ran the CF tests rapidly whilst she looked on.  I then asked her if she was satisfied it was cooked.  She was, I carved, we ate.  But I did express some anxiety, which was probably a little annoying, and I took a few moments to shake this off whilst eating.  I also was sensitized to pinkness and positioned my chicken in a way to minimize reflected light from reddish surfaces.  Then I got anxious about my knowledge of reflection and the colours in the kitchen.  A lot of cognitive effort was expended and I doubt it went unnoticed.  In short, I think I was surprised to be asked by an expert.  This probably heightened my normal responses.

Managing asymmetric risk through a division of labour proved tricky for me, a highly neurotic academic.  I was a poor choice of collaborator for a woman who enjoys cooking and likes to create a relaxed Sunday.  But it did make me wonder how people make such choices more generally, and if neurotic information acquirers are actually more often than not a good choice in sharper circumstances.  My wife's query on the chicken was not a tremendously serious enquiry, she knows what she is doing in the kitchen.  So expertise perhaps can deal with the asymmetric risk more successfully on average.  But when people are really up against it perhaps it's time to call the friend who most resembles Woody Allen.

The dinner was delicious, the chicken moist and full of flavour, and I am thinking about a whisky a little later on to finish the perfect Sunday.