Nasty!

A number of years ago, I read a day-in-the-life profile of a New York City foodservice inspector, a government worker who visited restaurants and schools throughout the five boroughs to assess compliance with city codes.

Three things I remember from the piece:

First, that when he found food that was in any way unfit for human consumption, he "condemned" it on the spot by pouring motor oil on it. Since he never trusted the establishments to ever dispose of anything, this was his way of making certain (with the thick, black viscosity of a couple of quarts of the oil) that it wouldn't and couldn't be used, even after he left the premises.

Second, he had a trick to make sure that any food left on a customer's plate wouldn't be re-served. On certain "mystery shopper" inspections, he would order an entree like fried shrimp, and leave two or three on the plate. In these remaining shrimp, he'd place a tiny rolled-up piece of paper, concealing it under the breading. A colleague would then follow him in and immediately order the same thing, checking this second order to see if the leftovers made it to the new plate.

Third, he was asked about the worst thing he had ever seen in all his years as an inspector. You'd think in New York City, it could be just about anything, probably beyond imagining. His answer, while bad, wasn't quite as horrific as I expected. It happened in the kitchen of a school. He came in and saw one of the cooks getting lunch ready. The guy wasn't wearing a shirt, and just had on an apron over his bare torso. He stood over a giant mixing bowl, mixing tuna fish by hand, which was reaching up above his arms and into his armpits.

No surprise, the contents of the bowl got the motor oil treatment.

Anyone want to share other fond recollections?

HI,

Just to make my load a little easier, no names. No hints on the name. No references to commercials where that name quickly springs to mind. No directions to the establishment to do just about everything but mention the name. No names.

Armpit hair. I occasionally go to a diner where a regular wears a sleeveless shirt. He will go behind the counter to refill his coffee and by the way anyone else who requests. His dense furry armpit is hovering over everything. I checked with someone in food service who said it wouldn't pass muster with an inspector. I don't go there often, but it is my fine bit of luck he almost always is there.

Regards,

My anecdote is from Singapore, so even if I remembered the name of the restaurant, there's little harm I could do it from here! Singapore being near the equator, it gets pretty hot in those kitchens. The cooks were wearing nothing but undershorts. Boxers, fortunately.

That's funny, Old School. I read that same piece (in New York, I think) 25 years ago, and have carried at least two of the images-- the motor oil and the guy mixing tuna salad up to his armpits-- ever since. Indeed, I still hesitate after my first bite in certain establishments, waiting to detect a hint of Quaker State.

My friend was an administrative assistant at the health department down in Champaign for a couple years, so she'd heard some good stories from the inspectors.

Their inspectors would pour bleach on food that they didn't want served again.

The most common violators were Chinese buffets. One time, the inspector went into the kitchen and looked down at the textured rubber mats on the floor. He asked, "did some rice spill in here?" and they said, "oh yes, just before you got here, we just haven't cleaned it up yet." He looked for another moment and stood upright and yelled, "THEY'RE MOVING! YOU'RE CLOSED!" All the "grains of rice" were maggots.

Another violation was when they'd make huge batches of rice a couple times a week, but they'd put them into containers that were so big that the rice in the center wouldn't cool off fast enough in the fridge and bad bacteria would develop. The other big violation, and I've heard this about lots of places, is that the cockroaches love sugar and would somehow get into the mechanics of the fountain drink dispensers and soft serve ice cream nozzles and lay eggs. Yum!

abe_froeman wrote:The other big violation, and I've heard this about lots of places, is that the cockroaches love sugar and would somehow get into the mechanics of the fountain drink dispensers and soft serve ice cream nozzles and lay eggs. Yum!

I don't know that this is the case, but a friend of mine who worked at a fast food place (in another state, and not to be named) said that you should never get the milkshakes from fast food place (yadda yadda yadda) or probably their other locations (all over the world) because they were forever shutting the machines down due to bacteria...

I have a friend who was eating Chinese take-out and decided there was too much breading for her taste. She peeled the breading off a few pieces of chicken, and then peeled the breading off a cockroach. She said it looked exactly like all the other chicken pieces in her meal.

I'm sure we've all eaten worse, but the image...*shudder*

That's not as bad as working with a guy who brought porn to work, would disappear for awhile and return with damp hands (the exec chefs knew, perused the material with him, found it amusing, and kept him on for 20 years).

Or a guy who made a large batch of roux, spilled some kind of cleaner on one side, but continued to use the other half because it was fine (fired).

We also often had to use filthy rags covered in muffin batter and crumbs (but they were kept in buckets of sanitizer!) and yesterday's filthy aprons because the laundry room just didn't do them in time (no one reprimanded).

This was a four- or five-star hotel in Rosemont. The rooms were fabulous but the kitchen was awful. The cafeteria served leftovers, and one of the main workers there often wore the same gloves all day, even to the bathroom. But she washed them with soap afterwards! (kept on staff).

I've since quit.

Pie Lady wrote:That's not as bad as working with a guy who brought porn to work, would disappear for awhile and return with damp hands (the exec chefs knew, perused the material with him, found it amusing, and kept him on for 20 years).

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwww

(Obviously not the "master of his domain"...)

Well, if he washed his hands after, what's the difference if he touched himself or a raw chicken? Sorry, but really?

If only I was still making T-shirts out of LTH quotes...

Leek wrote:Well, if he washed his hands after, what's the difference if he touched himself or a raw chicken? Sorry, but really?

As long as he didn't touch himself with a raw chicken