Usually if you ask to taste the meat they will hand you a free slice to try. When I went to Publix the other day I asked the deli artist if I could try the slice and she said no, because of new sanitation rules from the coronavirus pandemic. So I said ok and I did not get my free sample slice.
But then later I was thinking about it: how much does this really help? She still sliced the meat, put it into the bag, and handed me the bag. What’s the difference between that and her slicing me a sample slice and handing me the slice?
Also another question. They always at the deli ask me how I want my meat sliced. I have no idea what I’m supposed to say. “uhhh 3/16 an inch?”. I just say uh I don’t know and they cut me a sample slice and I say that’s ok. How many different ways do people get their deli turkey sliced?
Handing you a sample does provide more opportunities for a transfer infection. It doesn’t seem significant but it could lead to hundreds of potential exposures per day that might result in one infection. Doesn’t seem all that likely a way to pass the disease but every little bit of caution helps these days.
As for thickness, every deli has a few basic settings for slicing meat, you can ask for thicker or thinner, but that requires some idea of the way they regularly slice a particular product, thus they’ll hold up a sample slice for comparison.
Depending on the type of meat and how you want to present / consume it, you can ask for infinite gradations from ‘as thin as you can’ through to ‘as fat as you can’. I’ve never met a person working in a deli who did not do a few test pieces and asked if that was okay. Personally I like juicy meats like leg ham very finely shredded. Drier and they tend to atomise and crumble.
Or, assuming your arms aren’t painted on, you can just ask for a piece of the weight you want and you can get all medieval on it at home.
PS Its probably nothing to do with COVID hygiece, but I can live without you eating little bits of food at the deli counter.
Actually, it very well might be a covid hygiene requirement. The store where I work keeps getting more and more directives and because we don’t want to piss off the health department we try to keep up. Some make more sense than others. I’m sure there’s some rationale for all of them, whether or not that’s a valid chain of reasoning.
I’ve been saying for some time that every day I go to work I’m told “These three rules no longer apply, here are four new ones, and your schedule changed again.”
When the deli person asked me if I wanted a sample my automatic reply was, sure.
As she was preparing it, my mind raced to the last time I washed my hands. Since I was downtown, I had many transactions, and I didn’t want to touch the slice. I wanted to say, “Can you stick it in my mouth?” I decided against that.
I get my ham sliced different ways depending on whether I want it next to my eggs at breakfast (thicker) or stacked on a sandwich for lunch (thinner).
I assume the sample thing is just a blanket “no samples” policy to protect themselves. Easier to maintain one strict policy than to decide when a sample might be okay and open yourself to making someone ill (or lawsuits, of course).
I would think eating in a public place like that would provide an opportunity to bring the virus into your mouth. Even if the deli worker’s hands are clean, there’s no guarantee that the customer’s hand are uncontaminated. In a grocery store, you should assume that every item is contaminated since you don’t know the history of it. So unless you have freshly-washed hands, you should assume that your hands have been contaminated and act accordingly.
For example, I see people at the store talking on their phones with their unmasked face right next to products on shelves or in cases. Any infected droplets they expel while talking will land on those products and could be transferred to the hands of anyone who picks them up.
Yes, eating in public is discouraged or banned. And a lot of self serve grocery items are gone like olive bar and bulk rolls. Anything other than produce, come to think of it. I won’t be surprised if some deli counters are closed or at least restructured with fewer staff. The workers are on top of each other back there.