My BF says he won’t eat at buffets because they’re unsanitary; I had to explain to him that at “normal” restaurants, they keep the “buffet” in the back. On the line in the kitchen. Where nobody is looking and nobody cares. I worked in restaurants for years. Most salads are grabbed by hand, as are most baked potatoes, bread items, etc…the grill guy’s poking your steak with his finger to see how done it is…the handwashing sink is out of soap half the time and nobody’s noticed because nobody’s used it…
Either you never eat out or you get over it.
Same thing with potlucks.
The only thing I WILL NOT EAT at a potluck is anything containing mayo. I got really sick from some potluck potato salad once; I would assume it had just sat out too long.
As long as the hot food is reasonably hot and the cold food is reasonably cold, I’m all about potlucks. I don’t cook, so I enjoy eating other peoples’ cooking.
And yes, I’m the one who brings paper products or takeout.
Jesus, are you guys a bunch of picky snobs! Personally, I love them, because people generally make something really good to show off. Not to mention the yummy ethnic food…
You think Taco Bell is cleaner than a personal kitchen?? Not even close; fast food restaurants are FILTHY
I used to love them, back when I worked in an office. I’m the opposite of a germophobe, so I never thought about the home-kitchen-hygiene issue. In my experience, people bring their best dishes to an office potluck and it’s fun to try them all. Of course, I never worked in an office that had a weekly potluck – that seems like too much. We had maybe 3 or 4 a year.
Same for my husband – he’d need a potluck dish 3 or 4 times a year, too. His potlucks weren’t as much fun for me, though. I had to make a nice dish (he doesn’t cook at all), but never got the fun of trying out all the other options.
A lot of you probably wouldn’t want to eat what I bring to a potluck because my kitties do roam the countertop from time to time. And, while I do wash my hands and so forth before cooking, I’m not averse to sticking a finger in my concoction to have a taste whilst seasoning said concoction. That said, I usually limiit my potluck contributions to breadsticks (from the Pillsbury tube) accompanied by some lovely whipped Land O’Lakes butter, or maybe one of those packaged quick breads (add an egg, some oil and milk) with aforesaid whipped butter.
While my own kitchen sanitary standards are . . . er, relaxed, I hold others to a higher standard. I want to know who made **what ** before I partake. I’ve never been made sick by a random bite of an unknown dish, but it skeeves me to think of the dirty hands, unwashed surfaces, and icky flea-ridden critters that might lurk in my co-workers’ homes.
In other words, my germs are good–your germs are bad!
Well, yeah - in many cases you’re already used to your own germs and thus a-OK. I wouldn’t take that chance with any fecal bacteria, though, and cats are filthy enough that I’d clean the counters well before preparing any food on them. (Toxoplasmosis is nothing to mess with - I saw one patient who had damage to his retinas and lesions in his brain from toxo exposure, due his to having a suppressed immune system.)
I don’t mind it much. Where I work, we have a lot of good cooks. We usually get a lot of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and other foods - sometimes Indian, or others. I just have to watch out since I’m a vegetarian and tend to end up in the bathroom with very unpleasant gastrointestinal experiences later if I eat something with meat-based broth, lard, etc. hidden in it. I get requests to make brownies each time we have a potluck, as they’re famous around the office since the first time I brought them and people nearly licked the pan clean. (You too can make them if you pick the classic brownies recipe out of The New Best Recipe by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.) I’m just more careful than most to eat promptly and not go back for leftovers hours later since nothing gets kept hot at our potlucks.
Well. There is one woman that has terrible dandruff that is always all over her sweaters and blouses. I picture it going into her casserole. There is also someone with a bad smokers cough that grosses me out and I imagine spittle in her prepared food. I try to take a little from everybody but I just push around those two dishes.
Apologies if this has been addressed already … I read this thread a day or two ago, had a thought but didn’t add anything, and now that I see it is still going I’ll put in my two cents.
Namely: it is important to distinguish between DIRTY fingernails and STAINED fingernails. I am a good cook, very hygienic, and yet I do sometimes have disgusting-looking nails. Why? Well, I wash my hands constantly while cooking, but then use my hands to knead dough, crush herbs and spices, pull basil leaves off stems, etc. Let me tell you, grabbing a pinch of tumeric here, a bit of cinnamon there, and then pulling apart some basil plants really makes your fingernails gross. Some of these materials stain or oxidize, and it can be a day or two before my fingernails appear to be clean again, even though they are as free of pathogens as can be achieved by regular hand-washing.
I used to manage a pizzaria that was incredibly clean. We were very careful about what we served and that was important to us because it was our livelihood. Beyond that, we all went through intense training about cleanliness and how not to make people sick. I know the other insurance agents I work with probably haven’t gone through any of that training. More so, I hear them leave the restroom without washing their hands from time to time. I would rather eat at a restaurant where if I should get sick and can prove that is where it came from I can have some recourse and be compensated, whether it be by a free meal/refund or a lawsuit if it is something permanent. At a potluck it is much harder to track down who brought in the germs and you have far fewer options except to miss work and be ill, possibly carrying hepatitis or some such for the rest of your life all because other people wanted to bond.
This is why I quit participating. That and I started noticing that the engineers who loaded their plates the highest were the ones who’d bring in a can of olives or a pack of plastic forks. Meanwhile, the secretaries, who always instigated these and who made the least money, made lovely casseroles or equally expensive dishes.
Now I just completely avoid any mention or discussion of pot luck lunches. I bring my own food and sit at my desk to eat. Yeah, I’m a grouch - wanna make something of it??