Today I went to T&T Asian Supermarket, where an attempt to purchase salmon filets was aborted after the fish guy picked my selection up off the ice, grabbed a plastic bag, and then during the process of transferring it to the bag laid it down (skin side up) on a filthy mopping-up rag. He looked at me with blank incomprehension when I told him that I didn’t want it, after all. Seriously, the entire surface of the fish was in full contact with the dingy, gore-streaked rag - and not briefly, but laid down on it repeatedly as he tried to open the plastic bag with his rubber-gloved hands. I guess the gloves are to keep his hands clean.
…and just like that all packaged-in-store meat and fish products are on my short list of things that are not to be purchased at this conveniently-located market.
“Uh, you just set my fish down on a dirty rag.” look of utter incomprehension “What? Something wrong?” Wow.
At least I actually saw it happen, and didn’t take the fish home to cultivate for a few days before preparing it. That could have ended badly.
It made me think, though – of food safety (or general food hygiene and squickiness) abominations that occur away from the public eye, known only to the knowers who know.
The first hint I ever had of this body of occult knowledge was a co-worker I had at an office equipment supplier, who was formerly employed by B.C. Hot House. She was cryptic: “All I’m sayin’,” she muttered, “is wash your produce.”
The import of her laconic advice never really made much of an impression on me until years later, when I briefly worked at Shan Ming Mushroom farm in Maple Ridge. I was generally interested in mushroom cultivation, and thought that seeing up close how shitake and enoki mushrooms were professionally produced would be educational. Boy, what an education.
The importance of washing produce was brought home hard to me in the packaging room there. Women typically stopped their work for lunch with a cafeteria-style tray laden with bundles of enoki mushrooms in various stages of packing production sitting in front of them. Several of these women (being fastidious ladies) religiously flossed their teeth after their meals, sitting directly over neat stacks of mushrooms ready to be sealed in plastic. Nice.
That wasn’t what really brought it home for me, though. Made me a bit squeamish, but not enough to be completely scandalized. That came when our employer explained that that time of year had come when we might reasonably expect a surprise health inspection, therefore - with regrets - hairnets, aprons, and rubber gloves must be worn. You know, until that silly inspection was over, then everyone could be comfortable again.
Not terribly shocking, right? No - the truly awful part was that everyone wore their gear to the bathroom. (Only some wore the gloves back and forth.) This is probably enough to make most people go “eeew.” What hasn’t been explained is that there wasn’t really a bathroom, as such. There was a Port-o-Let. A Jiffy-John. One of those things. Not a nice Jiffy-John, either - not one of those pleasant compartments found at fairgrounds and whatnot.
The Jiffy-John deserves a paragraph break. Let’s put one here, arbitrarily. This thing was scheduled to be emptied every two weeks. I looked forward to that more than payday. After only three days, entering that thing was agony. Into the second week, you could catch it on the wind in the packaging room. Totally sickening. Everyone (save I) wore their “food safety gesture” aprons in there.
I love enoki mushrooms, and I try to buy local - but I could never pick up a pack of those without thinking about that.
I know that there are plenty of Dopers with cautionary tales to make the above anecdote seem like a trifle. So, out with it – please bring me tales to keep me scrubbing produce obsessively - 'cuz I’m sloppy with stuff I haven’t had first-hand accounts of.
