3 Truckee eateries served recalled beef

TRUCKEE - Three Truckee restaurants served beef that was later subject to recall due to possible mad-cow disease contamination, according to an announcement Wednesday by the Nevada County Department of Environmental Health.

The names of the restaurants have not been released by county and state health officials, pending authorization from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The restaurants served the beef before the USDA announced the recall, which occurred after a cow from a Washington state farm tested positive for mad-cow disease.

No Truckee grocery stores sold recalled meat, health officials said.

"The county and the restaurants themselves did not know they had recalled beef until after the recall," said Nevada County Director of Environmental Health Larry Sage. "It was very much after the fact."

USDA officials said they knew which restaurants had recalled beef weeks ago, after following beef distribution records from the infected cow's herd.

"We have known for weeks where the meat was distributed in California," said Steven Cohen, spokesman for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The USDA passed the information to the state, which in turn handed down the list of restaurants to county health officials Jan. 2. The only Nevada County restaurants implicated were in Truckee, health officials said.

The recall is Class II, meaning the health risk of contracting mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is extremely remote.

"It is important that people know so far as we know, there is absolute minimal risk at this point," Sage said.

Jake McCormick, general manager at Blue Coyote Bar & Grill, which was not named in the announcement, said health officials were fairly thorough in checking with Blue Coyote and its distributor to be sure the restaurant did not have recalled beef .

"We were notified by our distributor that there was some beef being recalled, and I checked to see if it matched any of the numbers (dates) they gave me, and they didn't," McCormick said. "Then I got two follow-up calls, one from the USDA and one from Nevada County."

"They (health officials) covered their bases very well with me," he added. "Some people might have thought it was too much, but they were being careful."

• For information on the beef recall and mad-cow disease, go to www.usda.gov.