We spent the last couple of days in San Francisco. The hotel we were in had a complimentary cold breakfast, and we sat near the buffet because it amuses me to watch the weird shit people do.
One of the food items was a bowl full of bagels. I stood patiently while a woman wrestled with a pair of tongs trying to get only half a bagel and spilling several onto the table top in the process, then picking them all up with the tongs and putting them back in the bowl and continuing her struggle, rather than just grabbing the bagel and pulling it apart. When she was done, she tried to hand me the tongs. I said “No thanks” and picked a bagel out of the bowl with my fingers, which earned me a disapproving look.
So here’s the observation: why do people have no problem with grabbing a pair of tongs that a hundred people have already had their nose pickers all over, but squick out if somebody actually comes in contact with a piece of bread that is going into the toaster? Why do they equate using tongs as somehow being more sanitary? It’s just one of those puzzling human actions that amuses me.
Same thing with gloves for food handling. People put the gloves on with the same hands they’d be handling the food with. I’ve even seen guys pull out a finger with their teeth so they can get their hand all the way in.
In the case you provide she could have just been one of those ‘always follow the rules’ people.
Not just that, but how hard is it to grab a bagel without touching all the other ones.
At my store we sometimes put out samples, say, of cheese. The employees will put toothpicks in the cheese and then when the top layer is gone they’ll go back and put toothpicks in it again. I’ve argued for years that they shouldn’t put any toothpicks in them. I find toothpicks EVERYWHERE. It’s disgusting. They’re all over the store. I mean, there’s garbages to put the toothpicks in, but instead the hide them all over the places or just set them down and I have to run around and pick them up. So, I’ll say 'nah, don’t even bother with the toothpicks and when they ask me what they should do I’ll respond with “I promise, the guy that’s grabbing six pieces of cheese and putting the toothpicks in the jelly belly display, he’s got no problem just grabbing a handful of cheese even if it doesn’t have toothpicks.”
People are disgusting when it comes to free samples. Next time you sit there trying to dig your broken chip out of the artichoke dip at the store and you get it on your fingers and then you lick your fingers and then you think how good it was and you grab some more on the way out…think about the last 45 people that did exactly the same thing. To this day, I’ll still remember the guy that managed to get dip in his ear (at my store). That’s when I stopped eating the samples at my store. I might grab a few (or some dip) when it first goes out, but that’s it, it’s pretty gross after that.
That’s why I no longer eat at a self-service buffet unless I can’t avoid it. That includes salad bars. If it has to have something called a “sneeze shield”, I don’t want any part of it. I’ve seen little kids stick their grubbies into a salad bar to grab something, take a bite, then throw it back. And then you’re dealing with tongs and spoons again. I’m not a germophobe, but it seems like that’s just asking for a good dose of something nasty, including e-coli. Unlike my wife, I also don’t pick up food that falls on the table. If it leaves my plate, it stays there. Ya see that guy wiping tables with that filthy rag? 'Nuff said.
I never understood the value of food workers using gloves to prepare the food or make the sandwich or whatever, then walk over to the register and complete that transaction WHILE STILL WEARING THE GLOVES, then go back to making sandwiches. Um, isn’t the point to ensure that the part touching the food I eat is clean? Once you take the cash and scoop your fingers into the coin bowls, that ship has sailed.
They used the tongs, because they are afraid if they didn’t, someone would write a screed on the internet complaining about the person who didn’t use the tongs (can you BELIEVE it?).
There’s a certain amount of overkill when it comes to food preparation, usually caused by health department regulations which are strict primarily to be overcareful.
I once talked to a Health Department person about my freezer. We had lost power, and wondered how long it would take for it to thaw and need to be thrown out. (Not an easy question, I know, since it depends on what is thawing.) She refused to give me an answer. As far as they were concerned, if you lost power for five minutes you were better off throwing everything away.
My wife worked at a day care center that provided food. They insisted that when you wash silverware, you put them into holder with the handle up. If you do that with spoons and forks, you pull one and the rest come with it. But having the tines facing up would mean you would touch them. They asked the Health Department person how she arranged the forks at home. She said, “with the tines up.” :rolleyes:
Our cafeteria wanted us to use tongs to pick up potato chips. Let that sink in.
People are dumb. Some people really believe that as long as they’re wearing gloves everything is good. Some people just wear gloves because the rule is that they have to wear gloves to touch food. OTOH, some people are smart but still don’t understand the nuances of wearing gloves. For example, if you don’t wash your hands before putting them on, the outside is dirty. If you wearing gloves and open a drawer, the gloves are dirty. If you’re wearing gloves and touch your face or your phone or any other surface, they’re dirty, change them.
I spend all day saying these things to my employees ‘HEY, you just grabbed your water bottle…change your gloves’.
My favorite one was back when I was probably about 15 (before gloves were really used), I was at a Sabarro at the mall and asked for some pizza. The girl spit out her gum, in her hand, and then grabbed my pizza. I very loudly said “did you just spit your gum out in your hand and then grab my pizza?” and she replied “I spit my gum in this hand and grabbed your pizza in this hand” and I said “That’s disgusting” and walked away.
I mean, yeah, she did spit it in one hand and grab the pizza with her other hand, but still, it was gross.
Why the hell did she need to spit out her gum in the first place?
I worked at an Arby’s long before gloves were a thing. If you were making sandwiches, you DID NOT handle money.
Rarely, if staffing issues forced it, you were to wash hands before handling money, complete the register transaction, than wash again before returning to the sandwich prep.
I remember when I was a line cook. Our manager who had ZERO experience in restaurant management saw me pick up a steak and watched me as I hand rubbed it with spices.
Upon seeing that he said to me: “Shakes, should you be handling that with your hands? Isn’t that unsanitary?”
After he said that, me and the other line cook that was working there just looked at each other and started laughing our asses off."
The manager just turned around and walked out of the kitchen, which was good because he didn’t have any business being back there.
(And yes, we knew to wash our hands before and after handling meat products.)
Unfortunately, there are some people who are just nucking futs about this whole issue.
I was dis-invited to help cook Christmas dinner one year because I used a knife to cut slices of cheese, wiped the knife with a clean dry towel, and then put it back into the knife holder. Apparently cheese cooties is more resistant than I had been lead to believe. :smack:
Anyone know where I can pick up an autoclave for cheap?
Another weird thing I noticed: we went to dinner at a brasserie that gets great reviews, and typical for SF, things were expensive (glass of ordinary wine: $12; steak: $38; spaghetti: $22). I ordered a gin and tonic. When the bill arrived, I noticed the following:
Gin…$8.00
Tonic…$1.00
WTF? Is it normal now to charge the mix as a separate line item? It’s bad enough that you’re paying the equivalent of $256 for a quart of gin, but then to whack you for the mixer just seems. . .cheap.
Maybe the server went to ring it up and pressed on Gin and then Tonic on the register. Even as I write that I realize they would have to be too stupid to live if they did that.
Agree, I tried to wipe the knife after cutting cheese, only to find that when I came back to the knife, there was a residue left on the knife. That stuff doesn’t come off easily with out warm water.