I’ve been wondering about this for a while…
On Food Network shows, chefs are often leaning over the plates, sweating, sometimes profusely. That seems like a huge health hazard, if not it’s just gross. I realize it’s TV, and often some contest where there is rushing around and nerves involved, and that they can’t control it, but is that happening in restaurants all the time and we just don’t know about it?
And why do they always wear those coats that look hot and stuffy? That would be the last thing I’d want to have on if I was that hot.
What else is going on that you’ve witnessed while working in a restaurant?
A story… I dated a guy in my youth who worked part time as a waiter in a Mexican restaurant (he always smelled like chips). One time I asked him what they did with all the chips left on the table after people leave. I figured they probably threw out several dozen garbage bags of them each night. He told me they just dump the bowl into the barrel with the new chips and keep going. While I’m making an “ew” face, he adds, yeah we do the same thing with the hot sauce, just dump it into the bucket with the fresh stuff. I was horrified! I said, but what if someone broke off a piece of chip in there or something? He said, they float to the bottom, and once the bucket gets too icky we start over with a new one. I swore I’d never eat Mexican again. And it’s my favorite! A few days later he finally fessed up that he was joking, it all gets thrown out. He was very convincing. I was so relieved to know that didn’t happen. But I bet somewhere there’s a place doing something like that.
I’m sure there are bigger health hazard issues but the one thing that always “bothered” me was chefs or staff shouting orders while prepared dishes sit nearby or in their hands. I imagine tiny globs of saliva being sprayed over the food. The reason I put “bothered” in quotes is because if it really bothered me, I would no longer be able to visit restaurants as I’m sure this happens everywhere. I just ignore it and hope that saliva on my food is from talking, and not from someone hocking a loogie.
Not a restaurant…but I recently painted a supermarket, which also had areas in the back where meat was cut and packaged and vegetables were sorted and wrapped. While there, we used to (not very clean) employee bathroom. My helper and I both noticed that the level of hand soap in the hand-pump bottle barely changed over the week or so it took us. I’ve read that few people properly wash their hands after using the bathroom; we concluded that the majority of people working there weren’t washing their hands at all. Or at least, weren’t using the soap.
Kitchens are hot, and cooks have to work fast because that’s what customers expect. I don’t know of any disease that can possibly be transmitted by sweat, which is pretty much just salt water anyway, and I can’t imagine any way of preventing cooks from sweating.
Aside from the argument for tradition, there are practical reasons to want to wear a thick long-sleeved garment when working with hot food that can potentially spill.
I’m barely old enough to remember a few hamburger places that weren’t air conditioned. The owners were too cheap to purchase one and use it. Sweaty cooks and staff were the norm. My parents and I were sweaty too.
The really small country stores weren’t air conditioned. Candy was soft and sometimes wormy. You learn to break it in half to check before taking a bite.
I was pretty young and didn’t give hygiene much thought. It would gross me out today.
Back in my waitressing days, I worked at several mid- to high-end restaurants. None of the chefs or other food prep staff wore gloves, and they constantly touched and handled the food. At one place, the chef was always sweaty from head to toe. He would grab fries and put them on the plate - we always joked that customers wouldn’t need to salt their fries.
I’ve seen half-empty baskets of rolls brought into the kitchen and put back with the fresh ones, to be reused. I saw a prime rib fall on the floor, picked up, seared slightly and then served. I once rolled a covered (acrylic dome) dessert cart out to a table, but noticed a cockroach running around the pastries. I made a U-turn, had someone remove the roach, and then was told to roll the cart back out to the table. The pastries were not replaced.
I’m not a germaphobe, so yes, I still eat out. I’m much more worried about undercooked food. I no longer eat at Chinese buffets, nor do I buy those pre-roasted chickens from the grocery, because twice I have gotten food poisoning from food that was either not cooked thoroughly, or was kept at inadequate temperatures.
What I’ve noticed on those restaurant shows (Restaurant Impossible, Hell’s Kitchen, Masterchef and others) is that none of the cooks are wearing hairnets or any sort of hat. Isn’t there any concern about hair getting in the food?
Of course you’ve all read those occasional viral stories about food-prep workers (especially in fast food places) doing gross stuff, like licking the taco shells. (In that particular telling of that story, apparently it wasn’t really what it seemed to be. (ETA: But he got fired anyway.))
So I’ve also read that the trend in fast-food (and some other) restaurants is to lay out their shops so that the food prep is done in direct sight of the customers. In-n-Out Burgers, for example, puts the food prep right in view. I think Chipotle does this too.
