TGIF--Let's get grossed out!

[canuk-gal]

HI:

A little levity...it's been a long and COLD week. What is the "worst" thing you've found in your food or gross behavior you've witnessed in a restaurant or market?

I'll go first. I just returned from the market where I witnessed a lady sampling the grapes. Something must have been disagreeable as she spat the grape out into her hand, threw it on the floor, then with her dirty (saliva) hand touched the other produce. I just about barfed.sad

As for food, I found a long black hair in a bag of salt and vinegar chips. At least it was deep fried! Unfortunately if anyone in our family/group will find hair in their food, it is me. eyiyiyi

cheers--Sharon

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Oh ya, I just thought of another one.

This is a Maui story...there we were having cocktails at a luxe spot, in paradise, watching the waves and then lunch arrives..

Mine starts to move. I had a salad--and one of the leafy greens was alive! I called the server who called the manager--and we had a good laugh. He was very professional--and stated they took pride in their organic produce from up island and I agreed that supporting local markets is the way to go. I think the creature was unthawed in my bowl and wanted to escape! LOLOL I had another drink instead of lunch and of course they comped our meal. My family laughed cuz it always happens to me!

cheers--Sharon

 

[mrs-b]

I once found chopped, dehydrated rat in my oatmeal. I'd prepared it and, while I didn't actually eat any, I ate some warm oatmeal that was touching it. The taste was terrible.

I spat it out (and no, I did not then go on to buy grapes, Sharon!), and poured the rest into a strainer and found half a dozen or so lumps - grey and coated on one side with stiff gray hair. I went through the rest of the box and there were multiple lumps. I didn't initially notice them because they'd obviously gone into the box moist, and had dried, coated in oatmeal flakes. So when I scooped out a cup to make my porridge, it just all looked like oatmeal. Once I washed some off, tho, it revealed what they were, and they stank. Whenever I tell that story, everyone asks me if I got back to Uncle Toby's to complain - and the answer is no. I was 22 years old and knew nothing about writing letters of complaint to companies or how to get something out of a situation like that. And let's face it - the last thing I was looking for was free Uncle Toby's oatmeal for life!

As for 'the worst thing in a restaurant' - my French class went to a French restaurant for a high school outing. I was sitting near the open door to the kitchen and, when the plates were collected, I watched one of the kitchen hands remove all the left over garnishes (parsley) and any leftover lettuce leaves, wash them off, and replace them into a large tub with unused (or previously used - who knows?) cuttings of parsley, and lettuce leaves, ready to be used again.

On the other hand - I always think watching the chefs on Top Chef sweat into the pots of food they're making while competing is pretty gross.

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Mrs-B--WOT the he**!!!! I don't think I'll ever look at oatmeal the same way!!!

cheers--Sharon

 

[Loreal]

Ok, mine is not a food, but gym story. I walk into the women’s locker room to a woman bending over naked as the day she was born, with her undercarriage completely exposed to me. Hey, I’m not a huge prude, but really, can’t she cover up? I don’t need to see that. This sight should be reserved for her significant other or her gynecologist!

 

[elle_71125]

These are the kinds of stories that make me want to never ever eat again!!! I don't know how you didn't vomit @mrs-b !

I think the most disgusting one I remember was eating a ham and cheese sandwich. It had plenty of lettuce, which I love. I'm busy chowing down on my sandwhich when all of the sudden I see my lettuce start to move!
I turned it over and found a very large green worm/caterpillar eating the same lettuce as me. The thought that I could have eaten that guy was so utterly revolting that I didn't eat sandwiches for two years after that (and I'm a freak about checking my greens now).

ETA: this has me thinking of Disney's The Lion King now. Remember that scene when Timon and Pumbaa suck down bugs like spaghetti?

 

[canuk-gal]

Ok, mine is not a food, but gym story. I walk into the women’s locker room to a woman bending over naked as the day she was born, with her undercarriage completely exposed to me. Hey, I’m not a huge prude, but really, can’t she cover up? I don’t need to see that. This sight should be reserved for her significant other or her gynecologist!

No kidding. Yikes!

 

[canuk-gal]

These are the kinds of stories that make me want to never ever eat again!!! I don't know how you didn't vomit @mrs-b !

I think the most disgusting one I remember was eating a ham and cheese sandwich. It had plenty of lettuce, which I love. I'm busy chowing down on my sandwhich when all of the sudden I see my lettuce start to move!
I turned it over and found a very large green worm/catapillar eating the same lettuce as me. The thought that I could have eaten that guy was so utterly revolting that I didn't eat sandwiches for two years after that (and I'm a freak about checking my greens now).

LOL. I wash my fruit and veggies. Frequently with soap.

My classmate had a caterpillar in her salad--we were eating in a hospital cafeteria.

It is cathartic talking about it, Elle. We gotta laugh otherwise we'll starve!

 

[Maisie]

Why did I open this thread!

 

[azstonie]

HI:

Oh ya, I just thought of another one.

This is a Maui story...there we were having cocktails at a luxe spot, in paradise, watching the waves and then lunch arrives..

Mine starts to move. I had a salad--and one of the leafy greens was alive! I called the server who called the manager--and we had a good laugh. He was very professional--and stated they took pride in their organic produce from up island and I agreed that supporting local markets is the way to go. I think the creature was unthawed in my bowl and wanted to escape! LOLOL I had another drink instead of lunch and of course they comped our meal. My family laughed cuz it always happens to me!

cheers--Sharon

FYI Maui
http://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2017/04/six-cases-of-rat-lungworm-reported-on-maui/

Six cases of rat lungworm have been reported on Maui over the past three months — tripling the amount of cases the island has seen in the past decade, Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang said Tuesday.

Three of the cases are confirmed with a seventh case involving a Maui woman who believes she contracted the parasite on the Big Island, Pang said. The island has only had two cases of the disease, one of which was confirmed in 2010.

“Is this a slow epidemic?” Pang asked. “For Maui, it seems pretty fast.”

The disease is commonly spread through contact with the invasive “semi-slug,” which is prevalent on the Big Island, where the vast majority of cases are reported in Hawaii. Rats host the worm and pass larvae through their feces, which are eaten by the slugs. Humans are then infected after eating raw fruits and vegetables contaminated by the slug.

The infection can cause a rare type of meningitis that causes severe headaches and stiffness of the neck, tingling or painful feelings in the skin or extremities, low-grade fever, nausea and vomiting, according to the state Department of Health Disease Investigation Branch. Temporary paralysis of the face may also occur as well as light sensitivity.

There is no cure for the disease.

“It’s pretty bad,” Pang said of the worm, which attacks the brain and spinal cord. “Some of the damage is permanent.”

Reactions from the parasite vary from person to person, but it appears the Maui woman has one of the worst cases, a friend said. Hana resident Kawika Kaina identified the woman as Tricia Mynar, a teacher at Kamehameha Schools Maui, and said she is experiencing tremendous pain and uses a walker due to the damage from the parasite.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-brai...snails-has-health-officials-concerned-in-maui

The infection is spread when rats carrying the parasite excrete the larvae of the roundworm in their faeces. From there, it can be picked up by other animals, such as snails, slugs, freshwater shrimp, crabs, and frogs.

If people handle or consume any of these infected animals – or come into contact with them on contaminated food sources, such as raw fruit and vegetables – they too can become infected.

For many, there are no symptoms, and most people recover from the infection on their own. But in some cases, the worm moves into the brain and nervous system, resulting in a parasitic form of meningitis that can cause intense headaches, tremors, numbness, and fever symptoms – and which can ultimately turn out to be fatal.

"The parasites are in the lining of my brain, moving around," Maui resident and preschool worker Tricia Mynar, who believes she contracted the infection while on the Big Island, told Honolulu Civil Beat.

*******************

Showering and bathing is a problem, if you have a break in your skin or a meatus through which the organism can enter...Maui uses a lot of cachement via rain water, which as it collects attracts the rats, snails, slugs, frogs, etc.

Once I started working in government in public health, I stopped eating fresh fruit and vegetables during travel and I'm super cautious with what I drink when I'm not at home.

 

[RetroTreeGal]

As a teenager, I went with my mother to Cracker Barrel where she always got the stewed apples as one of her side dishes. After a bite, she pulled out a glob of hair similar to what you’d pull out of a clogged drain. She called attention to it to the waitress who apologized profusely and offered to get her another dish of apples. Mom pointed out that all of the stewed apples likely came from the same pot, so no, she’d have something else. I wonder if they threw out the pot of apples or just kept serving it...

 

[canuk-gal]

FYI Maui
http://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2017/04/six-cases-of-rat-lungworm-reported-on-maui/

Six cases of rat lungworm have been reported on Maui over the past three months — tripling the amount of cases the island has seen in the past decade, Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang said Tuesday.

Three of the cases are confirmed with a seventh case involving a Maui woman who believes she contracted the parasite on the Big Island, Pang said. The island has only had two cases of the disease, one of which was confirmed in 2010.

“Is this a slow epidemic?” Pang asked. “For Maui, it seems pretty fast.”

The disease is commonly spread through contact with the invasive “semi-slug,” which is prevalent on the Big Island, where the vast majority of cases are reported in Hawaii. Rats host the worm and pass larvae through their feces, which are eaten by the slugs. Humans are then infected after eating raw fruits and vegetables contaminated by the slug.

The infection can cause a rare type of meningitis that causes severe headaches and stiffness of the neck, tingling or painful feelings in the skin or extremities, low-grade fever, nausea and vomiting, according to the state Department of Health Disease Investigation Branch. Temporary paralysis of the face may also occur as well as light sensitivity.

There is no cure for the disease.

“It’s pretty bad,” Pang said of the worm, which attacks the brain and spinal cord. “Some of the damage is permanent.”

Reactions from the parasite vary from person to person, but it appears the Maui woman has one of the worst cases, a friend said. Hana resident Kawika Kaina identified the woman as Tricia Mynar, a teacher at Kamehameha Schools Maui, and said she is experiencing tremendous pain and uses a walker due to the damage from the parasite.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-brai...snails-has-health-officials-concerned-in-maui

The infection is spread when rats carrying the parasite excrete the larvae of the roundworm in their faeces. From there, it can be picked up by other animals, such as snails, slugs, freshwater shrimp, crabs, and frogs.

If people handle or consume any of these infected animals – or come into contact with them on contaminated food sources, such as raw fruit and vegetables – they too can become infected.

For many, there are no symptoms, and most people recover from the infection on their own. But in some cases, the worm moves into the brain and nervous system, resulting in a parasitic form of meningitis that can cause intense headaches, tremors, numbness, and fever symptoms – and which can ultimately turn out to be fatal.

"The parasites are in the lining of my brain, moving around," Maui resident and preschool worker Tricia Mynar, who believes she contracted the infection while on the Big Island, told Honolulu Civil Beat.

*******************

Showering and bathing is a problem, if you have a break in your skin or a meatus through which the organism can enter...Maui uses a lot of cachement via rain water, which as it collects attracts the rats, snails, slugs, frogs, etc.

Once I started working in government in public health, I stopped eating fresh fruit and vegetables during travel and I'm super cautious with what I drink when I'm not at home.

PSA.

That said, I'm a gonner!

 

[kenny]

Why did I open this thread!

+1
Seems like a thread that Kenny would start.

 

[canuk-gal]

+1
Seems like a thread that Kenny would start.

I recall your beautifully photographed (parsley??) thread, Kenny. I said the same thing!

 

[Elizabeth35]

We were at a resort in Costa Rica with two youngest, who were teenagers. At the breakfast buffet one of them went to get a scoop of cereal and there was a live cockroach in the cereal jar. He was pretty calm and told one of the servers and waited patiently for new cereal.
My friend in HS bit into a candy bar and felt something moving---spit it out and there were live maggots.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

This is minor compared to some things shared here. In my twenties I worked in the mall and they had a food court I would frequent for convenience. So I'm standing in the food court trying to decide what to eat and I see the guy in Taco Bell mopping the floor. This kid comes up to order food and he pushes the mop bucket away and proceeds to take his order and make his food. No gloves either.

I have never eaten at Taco Bell and never will now that I associate it with dirty mop water

 

[kenny]

I was in the US military around 1980 having dinner at a swanky restaurant in Makati, one of the most expensive cities that make up The Philippines' capital city of Metro Manila.

A dark cat casually meanders along the back of the booths.
It has no fear of humans and stops often to sniff around.
Oh, wait! ... It IS as large as an adult cat, but it is not a cat!

It was a rat.

 

[AprilBaby]

We had a mouse bottled in some unopened ranch dressing. I thought I saw something but hubby told me to leave him alone. After he poured and ate some I saw the mouse. I called poison control to see if I needed to take him to the hospital. They told me the mouse was probably pickled anyway so don’t worry. My husband was annoyed at me being upset and wanted the bottle thrown away ASAP. We wanted to save it to take to the supermarket. He won and tossed it out. I thought I was going to be sick. He finished his meal (but not the salad).

 

[arkieb1]

I was sitting with an ex boyfriend eating Chinese in a foodcourt when he suddenly pulls out bubble gum or chewing gum that was obviously used out of his meal.

We ordered a Dominoes pizza that had fine metal shavings on it from the can/tin of pineapple that they had opened.

We found a metal nut in a cereal box.

Numerous bugs, caterpillars, dead cockroaches and the odd OMG that's a big spider in veggies brought home from the supermarket.

 

[AGBF]

I "had to" skim most of this thread. In fact, no one forced me to open it. I would rather I had not opened it (I guess). It makes me think of the millions of political threads Sharon (and others) have suffered through in Hangout. If this keeps some of you-all of whom I love-coming back when you are tired on Fridays, keep these (disgusting) threads coming. I will now know they are really not for me and will just not read them.

The funny thing is that I worked in hospitals for many years while thinking I wanted to become a doctor, and medical talk over meals never, ever bothered me. And I really heard pretty much everything that went on in hospitals while I ate. This was different. This was not just people talking about their days. It was gratuitous. I guess it also wasn't medical or heading for a purpose (even if the purpose was not achieved).

Just my observation on threads one wants to avoid.

Deb

 

[missy]

Ugh! Yes I opened the thread and don't regret it because it was Sharon who started it and I love you Sharon.

OK so here is my gross story. I was preparing a big fresh salad (organic of course) and as I was doing so OMG a live insect was in it and it wasn't just any small insect. It was a grasshopper! Ugh and argh and yes that experience a few years ago makes me super cautious when washing and prepping any salads and food in general. And I won't lie. It makes me a more reluctant restaurant goer but that is mainly because of Anthony Bourdain's book from 15 plus years ago that when I read I went uh oh bah bye eating out 3 times a week. Ewwwwww.

Here is an article he wrote from 1999. The book I have that made me think twice about eating out so often is "Kitchen Confidential". I highly recommend reading it. Very eye opening and entertaining and reader beware. If you want to remain blissfully ignorant about the restaurant experience don't read it. LOL.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2000/aug/13/foodanddrink1

Here is an extract from the book Kitchen Confidential.

I saw a sign the other day outside one of those Chinese-Japanese hybrids that are beginning to pop up around town, advertising 'Discount Sushi'. I can't imagine a better example of Things To Be Wary Of in the food department than bargain sushi.

I never order fish on Monday, unless I'm eating at a four-star restaurant where I know they are buying their fish directly from the source. I know how old most seafood is on Monday - about four to five days old!

I don't eat mussels in restaurants unless I know the chef, or have seen, with my own eyes, how they store and hold their mussels for service. I love mussels. But, in my experience, most cooks are less than scrupulous in their handling of them. It takes only a single bad mussel, one treacherous little guy hidden among an otherwise impeccable group ... If I'm hungry for mussels, I'll pick the good-looking ones out of your order.

Brunch menus are an open invitation to the cost-conscious chef, a dumping ground for the odd bits left over from Friday and Saturday nights. How about hollandaise sauce? Not for me. Bacteria love hollandaise. And nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to order. And how long has that Canadian bacon been festering in the walk-in? Remember, brunch is only served once a week - on the weekends. Cooks hate brunch. Brunch is punishment block for the B-Team cooks, or where the farm team of recent dishwashers learn their chops.

I won't eat in a restaurant with filthy bathrooms. This isn't a hard call. They let you see the bathrooms. If the restaurant can't be bothered to replace the puck in the urinal or keep the toilets and floors clean, then just imagine what their refrigeration and work spaces look like.

Beef Parmentier? Shepherd's pie? Chilli special? Sounds like leftovers to me. How about swordfish? I like it fine. But my seafood purveyor, when he goes out to dinner, won't eat it. He's seen too many of those 3ft-long parasitic worms that riddle the fish's flesh. You see a few of these babies - and we all do - and you won't be tucking into swordfish anytime soon.


'Saving for well-done' is a time-honoured tradition dating back to cuisine's earliest days. What happens when the chef finds a tough, slightly skanky end-cut of sirloin that's been pushed repeatedly to the back of the pile? He can throw it out, but that's a total loss. He can feed it to the family, which is the same as throwing it out. Or he can 'save for well-done': serve it to some rube who prefers his meat or fish incinerated into a flavourless, leathery hunk of carbon.

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant (aubergine) and zucchini (courgette) suits my food cost fine.

Secrets of the chef's kitchen for a home cook

You need, for God's sake, a decent chef's knife. ONE good chef's knife, as large as is comfortable for your hand. Like a pro, you should use the tip of the knife for the small stuff, the area nearer the heel for the larger.

The indispensable object in most chefs' shtick is the simple plastic squeeze bottle, essentially the same objects you see at hot-dog stands loaded with mustard. Mask a bottom of a plate with, say, an emulsified butter sauce, then run a couple of concentric rings of darker sauce - demi-glace, or roast pepper purée - around the plate. Now drag a toothpick through the rings or lines.

Gaufrette wha'? That's French for waffle-cut. You can do that. All you need is a mandolin, a vertically held slicer with various blade settings. Dauphinois potatoes cut to identical thickness? No sweat. You didn't think they actually cut those with a knife, did you?

Let me stress: heavyweight pans. A thin- bottomed saucepan is useless for anything.


Ingredients that mark out restaurant food:

Shallots
Essential for sauces, dressings, sautés.

Butter
In a professional kitchen, we sauté in a mixture of butter and oil for that nice brown, caramelised colour, and we finish nearly every sauce with it (we call this monter au beurre); that's why my sauce tastes creamier and mellower than yours. Margarine? That's not food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I can.

Roasted garlic
Garlic is divine. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago, garlic that has been smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Sliver it for pasta, like you saw in Goodfellas. Smash it with the flat of your knife blade. And try roasting garlic. It gets mellow and sweeter if you roast it whole, to be squeezed out later when it's soft and brown.

Chiffonaded parsley
Restaurants garnish their food. Why shouldn't you? Dip the sprigs in cold water, shake off excess, allow to dry for a few minutes, and slice the stuff, as thinly as you can, with that sexy new chef's knife.

Stock
The backbone of good cooking. Roast some bones, roast some vegetables, put them in a big pot with water and reduce, reduce, reduce. Make a lot, and freeze it in small containers.

Demi-glace
Simply take your reduced meat stock, add some red wine, toss in some shallots and fresh thyme and a bayleaf and peppercorns, and slowly, slowly simmer it and reduce it again until it coats a spoon. Strain. Freeze this stuff in an ice-cube tray, pop out a cube or two as needed, and you can rule the world.

Fresh herbs
A nice sprig of chervil on your chicken breast? A basil top decorating your pasta? A few artfully scattered chive sticks over your fish? A mint top nestled in a dollop of whipped cream, maybe rubbing up against a single raspberry? Come on! Get in the game!

Good food is often simple food. Some of the best cuisine in the world - whole roasted fish, Tuscan-style, for instance - is a matter of three or four ingredients. Just make sure they're good ingredients, fresh ingredients, and then garnish them.

Example: here's a dish I used to serve at a highly-regarded two-star joint in New York. I got 32 bucks an order for it and could barely keep enough in stock, people liked it so much.

Take one fish - a red snapper, striped bass, or dorade - have your fish guy remove gills, guts and scales and wash in cold water. Rub inside and out with kosher salt and crushed black pepper. Jam a clove of garlic, a slice of lemon and a few sprigs of fresh herb - say, rosemary and thyme - into the cavity where the guts used to be. Place on a lightly oiled pan or foil and throw the fish into a very hot oven. Roast till crispy and cooked through. Drizzle a little basil oil over the plate - you know, the stuff you made with your blender and put in your new plastic squeeze bottle? - sprinkle with chiffonaded parsley, garnish with basil... See?

© Anthony Bourdain, 2000

• This is an edited extract from Kitchen Confidential

Don'€™t Eat Before Reading This
A New York chef spills some trade secrets.


By Anthony Bourdain

Monday’s fish has been around since Friday, under God knows what conditions.

Illustration by Adrian Gill

Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay. It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals. It’s about danger—risking the dark, bacterial forces of beef, chicken, cheese, and shellfish. Your first two hundred and seven Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your two hundred and eighth may send you to bed with the sweats, chills, and vomits.

Gastronomy is the science of pain. Professional cooks belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of stoicism in the face of humiliation, injury, fatigue, and the threat of illness. The members of a tight, well-greased kitchen staff are a lot like a submarine crew. Confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces, and ruled by despotic leaders, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor saps who were press-ganged into the royal navies of Napoleonic times—superstition, a contempt for outsiders, and a loyalty to no flag but their own.

A good deal has changed since Orwell’s memoir of the months he spent as a dishwasher in “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Gas ranges and exhaust fans have gone a long way toward increasing the life span of the working culinarian. Nowadays, most aspiring cooks come into the business because they want to: they have chosen this life, studied for it. Today’s top chefs are like star athletes. They bounce from kitchen to kitchen—free agents in search of more money, more acclaim.

I’ve been a chef in New York for more than ten years, and, for the decade before that, a dishwasher, a prep drone, a line cook, and a sous-chef. I came into the business when cooks still smoked on the line and wore headbands. A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. In fact, it was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place. In the early seventies, I dropped out of college and transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on hands and wrists, the ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos. I would climb the chain of command from mal carne (meaning “bad meat,” or “new guy”) to chefdom—doing whatever it took until I ran my own kitchen and had my own crew of cutthroats, the culinary equivalent of “The Wild Bunch.”

A year ago, my latest, doomed mission—a high-profile restaurant in the Times Square area—went out of business. The meat, fish, and produce purveyors got the news that they were going to take it in the neck for yet another ill-conceived enterprise. When customers called for reservations, they were informed by a prerecorded announcement that our doors had closed. Fresh from that experience, I began thinking about becoming a traitor to my profession.

Say it’s a quiet Monday night, and you’ve just checked your coat in that swanky Art Deco update in the Flatiron district, and you’re looking to tuck into a thick slab of pepper-crusted yellowfin tuna or a twenty-ounce cut of certified Black Angus beef, well-done—what are you in for?

The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times.Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions. When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef. Even if the chef has ordered just the right amount of tuna for the weekend, and has had to reorder it for a Monday delivery, the only safeguard against the seafood supplier’s off-loading junk is the presence of a vigilant chef who can make sure that the delivery is fresh from Sunday night’s market.

Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off. (Most chefs don’t work on Monday.) Chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders, and they like to start the new week with their most creative dishes. In New York, locals dine during the week. Weekends are considered amateur nights—for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes. The fish may be just as fresh on Friday, but it’s on Tuesday that you’ve got the good will of the kitchen on your side.

People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for those of us in the business who are cost-conscious: they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage. In many kitchens, there’s a time-honored practice called “save for well-done.” When one of the cooks finds a particularly unlovely piece of steak—tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue, off the hip end of the loin, and maybe a little stinky from age—he’ll dangle it in the air and say, “Hey, Chef, whaddya want me to do with this?” Now, the chef has three options. He can tell the cook to throw the offending item into the trash, but that means a total loss, and in the restaurant business every item of cut, fabricated, or prepared food should earn at least three times the amount it originally cost if the chef is to make his correct food-cost percentage. Or he can decide to serve that steak to “the family”—that is, the floor staff—though that, economically, is the same as throwing it out. But no. What he’s going to do is repeat the mantra of cost-conscious chefs everywhere: “Save for well-done.” The way he figures it, the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam.

Then there are the People Who Brunch. The “B” word is dreaded by all dedicated cooks. We hate the smell and spatter of omelettes. We despise hollandaise, home fries, those pathetic fruit garnishes, and all the other cliché accompaniments designed to induce a credulous public into paying $12.95 for two eggs. Nothing demoralizes an aspiring Escoffier faster than requiring him to cook egg-white omelettes or eggs over easy with bacon. You can dress brunch up with all the focaccia, smoked salmon, and caviar in the world, but it’s still breakfast.

Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous.
Like most other chefs I know, I’m amused when I hear people object to pork on nonreligious grounds. “Swine are filthy animals,” they say. These people have obviously never visited a poultry farm. Chicken—America’s favorite food—goes bad quickly; handled carelessly, it infects other foods with salmonella; and it bores the hell out of chefs. It occupies its ubiquitous place on menus as an option for customers who can’t decide what they want to eat. Most chefs believe that supermarket chickens in this country are slimy and tasteless compared with European varieties. Pork, on the other hand, is cool. Farmers stopped feeding garbage to pigs decades ago, and even if you eat pork rare you’re more likely to win the Lotto than to contract trichinosis. Pork tastes different, depending on what you do with it, but chicken always tastes like chicken.

Another much maligned food these days is butter. In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything. Even non-French restaurants—the Northern Italian; the new American, the ones where the chef brags about how he’s “getting away from butter and cream”—throw butter around like crazy. In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter. Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan: the final hit is called “monter au beurre.” In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal.

If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat. As the author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his definitive book “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food has been prodded, poked, handled, and tasted. By the time a three-star crew has finished carving and arranging your saddle of monkfish with dried cherries and wild-herb-infused nage into a Parthenon or a Space Needle, it’s had dozens of sweaty fingers all over it. Gloves? You’ll find a box of surgical gloves—in my kitchen we call them “anal-research gloves”—over every station on the line, for the benefit of the health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a cook will slip a pair on every now and then, especially when he’s handling something with a lingering odor, like salmon. But during the hours of service gloves are clumsy and dangerous. When you’re using your hands constantly, latex will make you drop things, which is the last thing you want to do.

Finding a hair in your food will make anyone gag. But just about the only place you’ll see anyone in the kitchen wearing a hat or a hairnet is Blimpie. For most chefs, wearing anything on their head, especially one of those picturesque paper toques—they’re often referred to as “coffee filters”—is a nuisance: they dissolve when you sweat, bump into range hoods, burst into flame.

The fact is that most good kitchens are far less septic than your kitchen at home. I run a scrupulously clean, orderly restaurant kitchen, where food is rotated and handled and stored very conscientiously. But if the city’s Department of Health or the E.P.A. decided to enforce every aspect of its codes, most of us would be out on the street. Recently, there was a news report about the practice of recycling bread. By means of a hidden camera in a restaurant, the reporter was horrified to see returned bread being sent right back out to the floor. This, to me, wasn’t news: the reuse of bread has been an open secret—and a fairly standard practice—in the industry for years. It makes more sense to worry about what happens to the leftover table butter—many restaurants recycle it for hollandaise.

What do I like to eat after hours? Strange things. Oysters are my favorite, especially at three in the morning, in the company of my crew. Focaccia pizza with robiola cheese and white truffle oil is good, especially at Le Madri on a summer afternoon in the outdoor patio. Frozen vodka at Siberia Bar is also good, particularly if a cook from one of the big hotels shows up with beluga. At Indigo, on Tenth Street, I love the mushroom strudel and the daube of beef. At my own place, I love a spicy boudin noir that squirts blood in your mouth; the braised fennel the way my sous-chef makes it; scraps from duck confit; and fresh cockles steamed with greasy Portuguese sausage.

I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional. We’ve all chosen to turn our backs on the nine-to-five, on ever having a Friday or Saturday night off, on ever having a normal relationship with a non-cook.

Being a chef is a lot like being an air-traffic controller: you are constantly dealing with the threat of disaster. You’ve got to be Mom and Dad, drill sergeant, detective, psychiatrist, and priest to a crew of opportunistic, mercenary hooligans, whom you must protect from the nefarious and often foolish strategies of owners. Year after year, cooks contend with bouncing paychecks, irate purveyors, desperate owners looking for the masterstroke that will cure their restaurant’s ills: Live Cabaret! Free Shrimp! New Orleans Brunch!

In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit. It’s a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family. It’s a haven for foreigners—Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Chinese, Senegalese, Egyptians, Poles. In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón! chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all is well.” And you hear “Hey, baboso! Put some more brown jiz on the fire and check your meez before the sous comes back there and ****s you in the culo!,” which means “Please reduce some additional demi-glace, brother, and reëxamine your mise en place, because the sous-chef is concerned about your state of readiness.”

Since we work in close quarters, and so many blunt and sharp objects are at hand, you’d think that cooks would kill one another with regularity. I’ve seen guys duking it out in the waiter station over who gets a table for six. I’ve seen a chef clamp his teeth on a waiter’s nose. And I’ve seen plates thrown—I’ve even thrown a few myself—but I’ve never heard of one cook jamming a boning knife into another cook’s rib cage or braining him with a meat mallet. Line cooking, done well, is a dance—a highspeed, Balanchine collaboration.

I used to be a terror toward my floor staff, particularly in the final months of my last restaurant. But not anymore. Recently, my career has taken an eerily appropriate turn: these days, I’m the chef de cuisine of a much loved, old-school French brasserie/bistro where the customers eat their meat rare, vegetarians are scarce, and every part of the animal—hooves, snout, cheeks, skin, and organs—is avidly and appreciatively prepared and consumed. Cassoulet, pigs’ feet, tripe, and charcuterie sell like crazy. We thicken many sauces with foie gras and pork blood, and proudly hurl around spoonfuls of duck fat and butter, and thick hunks of country bacon. I made a traditional French pot-au-feu a few weeks ago, and some of my French colleagues—hardened veterans of the business all—came into my kitchen to watch the first order go out. As they gazed upon the intimidating heap of short ribs, oxtail, beef shoulder, cabbage, turnips, carrots, and potatoes, the expressions on their faces were those of religious supplicants. I have come home. ♦

Bon Appétit!

 

[Sunstorm]

Thank God I have never been a cereal person.

 

[MarionC]

Sharon, i read your first post and that was it for me. This thread takes courage to read.
And I will venture back in eventually.
I recently found a rather large cooked black beetle in a can of green beans.
A few years ago I cut my gum on some metal in an Edwards pie. When I contact the company they said whoops! Guess the magnet missed that one! Never before thought about how the pies are processed. They sent me a slew of coupons, which I threw out.

 

[missy]

OK so some (many?) of you might not want to read this.

https://www.livescience.com/55459-fda-acceptable-food-defects.html


If it makes anyone feel better eating insects is a very normal thing in many parts of the world. A great protein source. Just saying.

 

[MarionC]

Shrimp look lIke insects of the sea. I try not to think of that every time I enjoy them.

 

[missy]

Shrimp look lIke insects of the sea. I try not to think of that every time I enjoy them.

Jimmianne! Because of you (and I thank you for this you know so don’t feel badly) I no longer eat what was my favorite dish at Molyvos. Do you remember when we ate there and you told me that Octopi are the most intelligent of any invertebrate, even compared to spiders and crustaceans. So I haven’t eaten any since. I was so upset I didn’t know that before and thank you for telling me. ((((Hugs)))).

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Thanks for humoring me folks! Some of the accounts are difficult to read...aka barf. But thanks for sharing! As the Dalai Lama says (and I paraphrase) 'sharing diminishes our burden'.

...he's another one......We flew local airlines in Indonesia and there were cockroaches on the plane...hopping on tray tables....we skipped the food service....

cheers--Sharon

 

[AGBF]

Ugh! Yes I opened the thread and don't regret it because it was Sharon who started it and I love you Sharon.

Oh, sure, missy. Imply that I said I regretted reading this thread because I love Sharon less than you do.

Why am I back here?

Deb

 

[missy]

Oh, sure, missy. Imply that I said I regretted reading this thread because I love Sharon less than you do.

Why am I back here?

Deb

Deb, you know I love you too right? I have plenty of love to share.

 

[MarionC]

Ah Missy
Sorry and glad
If that makes sense lol