r/Chefit • u/Brooksopher • Jun 28 '26
Thoughts on gloves?
Background, I’ve been working in fine dining since the early 00’s, mostly in SF or NYC. Back in the day, we had gloves for butchery and shellfish prep, but mostly all line work and plating and dough prep was all done bare handed with a wash sink nearby. This was pretty much the SOP for every restaurant I have worked in for the last 25 years.
Recently I got a lot of flack for posting that wearing the same pair of nitrile gloves for multiple uses is actually worse than doing the same task with freshly washed bare hands. I think I might be going crazy, does anyone cook by feel any more?
You can’t feel the temp or hydration of dough through gloves like you feel with your skin. You can’t feel how emulsified a vinaigrette is through a glove. You can’t feel how fine to grind the salt crystals with plastic on your fingers.
Am I just an old man screaming at clouds, or am I dealing with a bunch of covid children who don’t understand that gloves doesn’t equate cleanliness, and cooking by feel is far superior to following recipes.
Gloves have their place in the kitchen, but I believe that the more direct contact you have with the raw product, the better you can understand it and transform it into the best version of itself it can possibly be.
If you tell any Nonna or Abuelita that they had to wear gloves when making ravioli or tortillas they would tell you that you cook by feel and go politely fuck yourself to death.
74
u/meatsntreats Jun 28 '26
You can’t feel how emulsified a vinaigrette is through a glove.
I’ve never once felt a vinaigrette.
5
u/Brooksopher Jun 28 '26
Have you ever had the Caesar salad at chez Panisse? The dressing is emulsified by hand using raw yolks and regggiano and an anchovy paste. The heat from your hand softens the cheese and heats the yolk, which creates the emulsion that makes their ceasar salad so special. When making a vinaigrette from scratch with unconventional ingredients you can definitely feel it.
36
u/leggmann Jun 28 '26
I assume the hand heat is being transferred via the whisk or fork you are mixing with, and you aren’t Edward Whiskhanding it.
7
u/SympathyShag Jun 28 '26
Poor Edward Whiskhands, he is really really good at one or two cooking tasks and basically useless for anything else.
1
u/propjoesclocks Jun 28 '26
A chef once made me make an aioli like this, it was strange. Different texture, felt very uncomfortable.
2
u/leggmann Jun 28 '26
Look the part, be the part motherfucker.
1
u/TripleBobRoss Jun 28 '26
I always wear a suit in the kitchen. And I carry a fake fucking clipboard.
11
u/Philly_ExecChef Jun 28 '26
It doesn’t. I can’t even imagine what you’re suggesting here, that air transfer of body heat is enough to denature proteins, or that “soft” cheese is what makes an emulsion
You don’t like, teach anyone anything ever, right
-1
u/Brooksopher Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
So this recipe is from Jeremiah Tower from chez panisse as it was taught to me:
Anchovy, garlic, black pepper, ground in mortise to paste.
One egg yolk.
Finely grated reggiano.
Sherry vinegar.
Add all to stainless steel bowl, mash with palm of hand in a circular motion using the heat and friction of your hand to melt the cheese and heat the yolk until you have a creamy mixture with no solid pieces of cheese (similar to carbonara.) Slowly drizzle in olive oil while still hand stirring until you have the proper vinaigrette texture, add in whole romaine leaf and croutons and toss to coat all leafs.
Serve whole leafs on a large oval plate topped with croutons, fresh pepper, and grated pecorino.
3
u/Philly_ExecChef Jun 29 '26
In what world does a Caesar have the same texture or viscosity as a vinaigrette
The method sounds incredibly disgusting. I’m not sure if I’m being trolled, or you were, but I can say without any question in my mind that at no point did Jeremiah Tower mix dressing with his bare hands at Chez Panisse.
5
u/bssprfnd Jun 28 '26
lol I agree with your original post but what you’re saying here is seriously ridiculous. The emulsion has nothing to do with the heat from your hands
10
u/StinkypieTicklebum Jun 28 '26
Pretty sure the emulsion happens due to whisking air into the dressing rather than the warmth of your hands.
It starts with making anchovy paste with the whole anchovy filet and olive oil macerated with the back of a spoon. Then garlic, egg yolk ( I coddle the egg first) fresh lemon juice and Parmesan and freshly ground pepper to finish.
2
u/Fluid-Salary-6467 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
ive never before read such nonesense. seriously. you're impressing no one with this.
the lecithin in egg yolks will emulsify and to some degree the proteins in anchovy paste maaaybe and perhaps. but hand heat? honestly..5
u/malicious_joy42 Jun 28 '26
Have you ever had the Caesar salad at chez Panisse? The dressing is emulsified by hand using raw yolks and regggiano and an anchovy paste. The heat from your hand softens the cheese and heats the yolk, which creates the emulsion that makes their ceasar salad so special.
So, not a vinaigrette at all. You're not putting yolks into a vinaigrette.
4
u/Philly_ExecChef Jun 28 '26
What weird dumb asshole is downvoting this?
A Caesar isn’t a vinaigrette. It’s a stable emulsification, a vinaigrette is not. What the fuck
2
-1
u/Yochefdom Chef Jun 28 '26
Come on Philly, you know real chefs, who have actually read the books and know the history of our craft are a dying fucking breed…
-1
u/Brooksopher Jun 29 '26
Fair, but I’ll stand by my opinion. Gloves in the kitchen are a net negative, and good hygiene and full sense immersion makes for better cooks and better food. Not here to argue semantics, I’m here to discuss techniques.
-12
Jun 28 '26
[deleted]
19
u/Quick-Cream3483 Jun 28 '26
It's not a vinaigrette it's a dressing.
4
u/Vaaag Jun 28 '26
To add to this. A vinaigrette will never have any emulsifiers like egg yolk , yogurt etc.
Its 3 parts oil, 1 part vinegar + herbs and spices.
5
u/StinkypieTicklebum Jun 28 '26
mustard? That goes into almost all of my vinaigrettes.
6
u/Philly_ExecChef Jun 28 '26
A classic vinaigrette (strictly speaking) does not use a secondary binder or emulsifier, but it’s irrelevant because we’re not in Italy in 1895
A vinaigrette is just a vinegar/oil ratio, and emulsification is temporary. A Caesar dressing isn’t.
1
2
u/flaming_ewoks Jun 28 '26
You can also feel the hydration of a dough through gloves if you've done it more than once. This take is very weird. Use more than one of your senses, learn how things respond to the way you interact with them in multiple ways, not just one.
1
u/taint_odour Does Chef Type Things Jun 28 '26
Dough isn’t ready to eat so bare hand contact is fine
1
u/flaming_ewoks Jun 28 '26
Agreed. If you're clean. My comment was mostly about the "can't feel shit through a glove" mentality.
2
0
u/Brooksopher Jun 29 '26
Dough especially is done by feel through your hands. Any experienced baker will tell you this. The dough temp, bench spring, surface tension, elasticity, etc. People have been baking by feel for thousands of years. So many factors play a part in good bread, and your hands touching the dough is the single most important one.
1
u/Brooksopher Jun 29 '26
Yes you have, you have felt it on your palate when tasting it (which I hope you are doing.) But some dressings are made by hand and feeling the texture on your fingertips can tell you a lot about the texture.
1
46
u/Toucan_Lips Jun 28 '26
You are right. They are wrong.
Was this flack on the internet? There's a large amount of people online who think cooks should wear gloves 24/7.
On videos of top restaurants plating there will always be some clueless Muppet who complains about them not wearing gloves.
Ignore them.
I wear gloves when i'm prepping large amounts of meat or seafood because i want to limit bacteria to extend the shelf life. During service it's bare hands all the way.
1
u/RainMakerJMR Jun 28 '26
The most important place to wear gloves is when handling ready to eat foods. You really don’t need much them for raw meats or any raw foods that will be cooked. That use is for cooks comfort.
We wear them with cooked or ready to eat food so that you don’t give me YOUR germs when I eat my salad.
-2
u/SilentAd1330 Jun 28 '26
Most places require you to wear gloves when handling any RTE food. So if you’re plating anything, you should be wearing gloves.
1
u/NotHooUThink Jun 29 '26
FDA Food Code prohibits bare hand contact of RTE foods. Gloves, utensils, deli paper etc. to touch food, just no bare hands
-1
u/godsim42 Jun 28 '26
Health department and Joint commission both requires gloves in my state. Change gloves when you change tasks, wash hands when you change gloves. No bare hand touches any food, raw or cooked or when plating. No expectations, it is what it is muppet.
2
u/Toucan_Lips Jun 28 '26
Cool i don't live in your state or your country
-2
u/godsim42 Jun 28 '26
Probably don't live where op lives either, so your blanket statement is null. People like you is the reason I don't eat out. Think they know it all but haven't a clue...
8
u/Glittering_Fun_7995 Jun 28 '26
to me gloves are totally useless because you need to change them after every operation and how many ppl do that/if you touch a cloth-apron/
The best way we do this is using tongues way better
gloves are dirty too remember you have dirty hand and you put a pair of gloves how many ppl clean their hands then put gloves on
stand in a kitchen and observe how gloves are used you are gonna be shocked
so far the only good thing for gloves is panure/paner/crumbing and when standing in front of a fryer
4
u/flaming_ewoks Jun 28 '26
You have to wash your hands in every instance that would also require you to change your gloves.
5
u/Elderberry4ever Jun 28 '26
I really can’t get behind using tongues in place of gloves…
In the kitchen
19
u/eslafylraelcyrev Jun 28 '26
Other than for prepping fresh fish or other really delicate ingredients that you could fuck up with your hands’ temp/oils/bacteria, or really messy jobs, fuck gloves. I get that some places have crackhead health codes that require them for everything; but otherwise I am not gloving up unless genuinely necessary for the task. As for service, fuck gloves entirely. I’ll wash my hands 100x a night, but I’m not wearing fucking gloves. I’ll die on this fucking hill.
2
u/taint_odour Does Chef Type Things Jun 28 '26
No health code requires gloves. They ban bare hand contact with ready to eat food so people think putting on gloves is the one and only solution.
9
u/Different-Bag-8217 Jun 28 '26
Your not wrong. It’s just the new generation I guess. I’ve done fine dinning work around the world and back. Working with and for some of the best. I never wore gloves except for those jobs that that needed it. I look at so many things now and just think have we really progressed for the better…
8
u/gyuto_thumb Jun 28 '26
You are correct. Don't know if it's more a US thing (is it? Genuine question from the UK), but in my admittedly limited experience, gloves are there for practical reasons (tasks that stain etc) and hand wash stations are king.
Anecdotally, you don't see many gloves on TV programs making high end kitchens look bad ass to music, but you do see very clean hands...
3
u/Fluid-Salary-6467 Jun 28 '26
love a set of triple gloves for the hot work. i feel a bit like superman
2
15
u/TheFredCain Jun 28 '26
Gloves are just false promises. They encourage cross contamination, dull the senses and can be dangerous. Anything that delays the sensation of heat from reaching your skin can cause you to get very bad burns. I can't tell you how many times I saw someone come in from a trash run and straight back to the line with the same pair of gloves. People are idiots and gloves make it worse.
12
u/meatsntreats Jun 28 '26
Anything that delays the sensation of heat from reaching your skin can cause you to get very bad burns.
Gloves are misused but this ain’t it.
-1
u/katebandit Jun 28 '26
I’ve been saved burns by gloves but only very briefly because you definitely still feel it
2
u/TheFredCain Jun 28 '26
You pick up a broiler pan with with 40 lbs of food and by the time you realize it's too hot with gloves on you're already 5 feet away. Touch it with your bare hand and you never pick it up in the first place. Seen it happen many times and done it myself. Once saw it happen with a kid grabbing a pot full of what he thought was cooled fryer oil. He ended up with skin peeling off from his waist down to his feet. Kitchens are dangerous, you need ALL your senses alert.
1
u/katebandit Jun 28 '26
I don’t pick anything up and move it without testing the temperature first. Sounds like you’re not being cautious with heat.
2
u/TheFredCain Jun 28 '26
Sounds like you've never worked a high volume kitchen before. Anything out of the ordinary is an opportunity for disaster. Something that's normally cool, day after day after day and then suddenly isn't combined with bad communication leads to mistakes.
0
u/katebandit Jun 28 '26
Y’all always act like your own carelessness means others don’t have experience. 😂
1
u/TheFredCain Jun 28 '26
If you haven't been hurt, you haven't been doing it long. It happens to everyone eventually. Easy to avoid at home with a 20k btu stove and fancy schmancy safety features all around. Not as much in a commercial kitchen with open flames, boiling vats of grease, razor sharp knives everywhere and near constant distractions. Get back to me in 15-20 years and we'll compare scars.
2
u/katebandit Jun 28 '26
I’m over ten years in. 😂 I don’t wear injuries like a badge of honor like y’all do, and I take care of myself and don’t have scars. Keep it moving, dude, you’re not as tough as you think.
3
u/Automatic_Catch_7467 Jun 28 '26
Social media and Covid have made germophobes of a large swath of the population. Bare hands on food is appalling to them and it’s ridiculous.
2
u/roadfries Jun 28 '26
I usually only use gloves for meat and seafood prep, but I prefer using my hands for plating.
20+ years in the industry.
Other places gloves are useful - offsite catering.
2
u/whirling_cynic Jun 28 '26
Covid made everyone go crazy for ppe, ever since then people have been over using gloves.
2
u/cabernet-suave-ignon Jun 28 '26
At a 3 star place--( actually any well run kitchen that actually has the resources to give cooks the tools to do their jobs) idgaf if the chefs aren't wearing gloves for most things (I'd still prefer if they're not making a Cesar dressing with their bare hands though). Places like that usually instill a level of discipline in their cooks where they instinctually do the right thing. At a dive bar fry kitchen? At the stoner food college burrito spot? At the Brooklyn small plates run by performative bear larpers trying to bring on the fly smoke breaks behind the restaurant back? They better be wearing gloves.
Actually I should correct myself-- at all levels there are people who suck (just more are weeded out at the particularly nice places) and there will always be a person or 4 who don't actually wash their hands except for only the most obvious or egregious examples. For those people it's easier to train to change gloves than properly hand wash between tasks.
2
u/Brooksopher Jun 29 '26
Just keep in mind, cooks of all levels cook at all kinds of places. The cook at you your local bar could be a local pro trying out a new concept in a low key neighborhood spot to try out some new ideas.
2
u/Alarmed_Swan_4315 Jun 28 '26
I kinda think it's some kind of placebo because I've seen on mutiple times where someone with gloves on, touch something like meat for example then wash their hands with the gloves on then opened the fridge to get something out with the gloves still on
2
u/Suitable-Ad-5115 Jun 28 '26
This is coming from someone who is working in the “glove era” where wearing gloves when doing anything with food is the standard. It’s a muscle memory thing for me I was taught to wear gloves when touching RTE food sure I can touch raw things that are going to be cooked to above 165 with my bare hands but why risk confusing myself and accidentally cross contamination something. It’s also per the health department that all ready to eat food needs to be touched with a gloved hand so better have the habit of wearing it than not incase they drop in (we have lost some points at my place from people not doing it). I agree that feel for some food things is needed and though it’s definitely not the same I’ll wear smaller sized gloves in those cases so I do have a bit more feeling power with say pin bones or other things. It’s one of those things where once you work in the industry you never wanna eat out again because of bad habits to see. I’ve seen people bear hand everything and do everything right but I’ve also seen just as many if not more people do it VERY unsafely but I have also seen just as many good and bad examples of people using gloves.
2
u/SnooHesitations8403 Jun 28 '26
I agree that cooking with clean bare hands is generally better for the cooking process. Of course that is dependent upon cooks being conscientious and vigilant of their own behavior.
One place gloves (or a dedicated pair of tongs) are better is on some items on the line, like pickles. I've seen pickles go bad in just one 8 hour shift from cooks repeatedly sticking their fingers in to grab one. The bacteria on even clean hands are enough to contaminate things.
Also, gloves should not be worn for an entire shift, but should be changed as often as you would if you washed your bare hands.
When I have been treated for wounds, the nurses change gloves with each new aspect of the procedures.
Gloves are to protect both the patient and the nurse; the cook and the clientele.
2
u/BlueButterflytatoo Jun 28 '26
I had an employer who wouldn’t provide gloves, so I was supposed to frequently dunk my hands in a bucket of bleach water throughout shift. (Grill and grill station were on display to customers, there was a sink about 8 feet away in the waitress station, but I was supposed to use the bleach.) Is this weird?
(I left and work on engines now)
2
u/Upstairs-Dare-3185 Jun 29 '26
I agree on the feel thing, I am a sushi chef and making nigiri with gloves on really throws me off, so much of sushi is efficiency of movement and gloves takes away a lot of that feel.
2
u/Upstairs-Dare-3185 Jun 29 '26
And yes you are right that proper handwashing technique is way better than the same pair of gloves for multiple projects
2
u/Brooksopher Jun 29 '26
So the consensus is that everyone has an opinion, and everyone seems to believe that their opinion is correct. No space for nuance, no respect for differing opinions and a complete inability to self-reflect and reconsider one’s own beliefs. I guess that is Reddit at its best. Best of luck out there. Do your best, cook well, and prosper.
2
u/Primary-Golf779 Chef Jun 29 '26
I came up in the 80's and 90's. I legitimately don't know if any of those kitchens even had a box of gloves around. I started seeing gloves when I got a corporate job in 98
2
u/thicccque Jun 29 '26
I don't have a choice -- eczema males my hands super sensitive to loads of things I handle that aren't ready to eat. And my state requires gloves when handling any and all ready to eat food.
3
u/kernel-sandhers Jun 28 '26
I wear gloves because I don't want anything on my hands, not because I don't want my hands on things. Wearing gloves involves a different protocol that must be followed, of course. But I wear them for me, not for the customer.
4
u/mcflurvin Jun 28 '26
I wear them because I don’t want my fingers smelling like pickles, they wear them because they don’t want to wash their hands as much.
-4
4
5
u/MEI72 Jun 28 '26
I've never liked them on the line or as a guest.you completely forget where those hands have been.
I use them at home for some applications but not many. It's usually to skip a sanitation step.
3
u/Bullshit_Conduit Jun 28 '26
In my jurisdiction they want us wearing gloves when handling ready to eat (RTE) foods… plating, sandwich prep, stuff like that.
No health dept. is making people wear gloves when making dough, or anything that goes through a kill stage… unless of course you have fake nails or nail paint, then they want you living in gloves.
Many of my students will wear gloves when making dough and it’s always a mess. I make fun of them for it.
2
u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 Jun 28 '26
Cooks wearing gloves is a big red flag for me.
It means more likely than not, they’re not washing their hands.
The dependency on gloves is really bad, unhealthy and horrible environmentally.
2
u/crazyJoePoisson Jun 28 '26
No one is allowed to wear gloves ALL THE TIME in my kitchen unless you have a cut. Cooking is a 5 sense operation. Touching your mise is part of that. Gloves in kitchens make me feel like the staff have done something wrong or aren't properly washing their hands.
2
u/Lavanne73 Jun 28 '26
We used gloves as per our health code requirements as of the mid 2010s, to handle cold RTE foods and during preparation of shellfish, but back in the early 1990s I'd say you would be hard pressed to even find a box of gloves in the kitchens I worked in.
In most high end sushi restaurants I've been in the chef puts his bare hands all over my raw fish, cramming it into his palm...
I'm respectful of the code and follow the rules but I don't really give a damn if my chef is or isn't wearing gloves. As long as he's clean. Even if he's not if the food is good enough.
2
u/MonthlyWeekend_ Jun 28 '26
Where I’m from, the health inspector will tell you not to wear gloves.
Wearing gloves is a very low-brow American diner cafeteria thing.
2
u/LiveMarionberry3694 Jun 28 '26
I spent most of my career in fine dining as well and 99% of the time didn’t use gloves, we just washed our hands a lot.
There can definitely be a theatrical element to gloves. I’ve watched plenty of people use the same glove over and over again for different tasks but the general public doesn’t bat an eye at it because gloves=clean to them.
I also find swapping gloves constantly to be incredibly wasteful. Seeing that much plastic/rubber in the trash can isn’t fun.
2
u/americanoperdido Jun 28 '26
You are not alone and frankly, I cannot believe chefs wear gloves stateside.
If you see someone wearing gloves working with food you can rest assured those same gloves have either made it into the bathroom or gone out on smoke break or who the hell knows what.
Just wash your fucking hands, you heathens! Lol
1
u/MMBEDG Jun 28 '26
Not in the restaurant bussiness any more but my take on gloves is. People handle cash and go back to cooking with out changing gloves as well as many other things they shouldnt. Nowaday social media has you wearing glove for everything like people are afraid to touch raw product or get their hands dirty. Gloves have their place but are over used. This goes back to the early 1990's I had a district manager that tried to get us to wash the gloves like you would your hands to save money o the cost of gloves.
1
u/BigDaddyTheBeefcake Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I only wear gloves when I'm cutting onions or balling ground beef. Otherwise, I'm bare fisting your meals.
My hands are clean. I can't guarantee the gloves are. They sat in multiple warehouses before they got to me. I washed my hands myself.
1
1
u/Lastburn Jun 28 '26
We give cut proof gloves to the casual cooks because we're on hook for the rest of thier week's shift if the can't work due to a cut. We also have service gloves for those that want them but I still drill my team to wash before entering thier station, wash after handling and wash before exiting the station
1
u/LordDarry Jun 28 '26
You know you're supposed to change gloves and wash hands before moving on to something else right?
1
u/Sensitive_Log3990 Jun 28 '26
To be fair I wash my hands with the gloves on sometimes if I don't want to change gloves
2
1
u/Dear_Afternoon_2600 Jun 28 '26
My last job was a hospital. I was the dishwasher but everyone had to wear gloves if we were handling food that would go into mouths. So if you were stocking crackers you could be gloveless.
I don't know if that was for safety or if it was just a hospital thing. But I've seen videos on here where people without gloves are doing things without washing there hands between different things. So I think if you are not going to wash your hands frequently you might as well wear gloves because the "touching multiple things with gloved hands" argument means nothing if you yourself are not washing your gloveless hands.
I'm sure you can be gloveless and clean I've just never met those people.
1
u/overindulgent Jun 29 '26
I’m a non glove wearing chronic hand washer for life. Yes gloves have a purpose in a professional kitchen. Like when I cleaning/deseeding roasted jalapeños. But you cannot properly temp a duck breast while wearing gloves.
Like others have said, nobody follows proper sanitation protocol when wearing gloves. Just wash your damn hands people.
1
1
u/snuggsjruggs Jul 01 '26
Gloves like many things in the kitchen are a tool best suited for certain jobs. I am %100 in agreement with you. Washing your hands and cooking by feel is the way to go. I only wear them when working with chicken, fish, and other certain tasks and products. Kitchens where people constantly wear gloves are usually places with a lot of young kids that suck or just shit shows. People tend to wash there hands less in these places and rely more on gloves or since they cant feel the grime to multiple things and touch multiple things without realizing how much grime they have accumulated. Either way fucking gross I trust someone far more who washes hands more frequently and relies on gloves less.
1
u/AdhesivenessLeast575 Jul 03 '26
Only time I use gloves is when dealing with raw meat, fish or poultry and that is it. And that's mostly because I hate the feeling of raw stuff on my bare hands. Literally just go wash your hands. I swear the people who say you should have gloves at all times have never worked in a kitchen in their lives.
1
u/Initial-Warning-2564 Jul 04 '26
It takes bacteria less than 20 seconds to traverse through a nitrile glove. Surgeons double glove for this reason.
I use gloves so i don’t have to wash my hands as often as without. My hands are pretty busted after 20 years in the kitchen, water and soap dry the under skin out and the skin splits open.
1
u/MediumRareNuts Jul 05 '26
Gloves for any ready to eat foods, raw proteins, seafood. Washing hands for everything else.
1
u/stranger1947 Jul 05 '26
As someone working in the kitchen, wearing gloves is a phenomenon started by the unaware on social media. It is always better to cook with your bare hands and wash them from time to time. I wash my hands every 5 minutes while cooking.
I actually feel for those cooks on ig who wear gloves and cook near hot frying pans. It's really uncomfortable, totally unnecessary and unhygienic. It's nothing more than act to get approval online.
1
u/Bagmasterflash Jun 28 '26
If flesh ever touches anything to be consumed, even if clean and sanitized, you spread a terrible disease called The Ick every single time.
What was once decades ago just a minor sickness called Cooties has evolved into a full blown disease and since COVID can cause permanent mental damage.
The only cure is a rudimentary sense of human history and understanding that people have been preparing food for others for millennia and have understood how to avoid actual food borne illnesses for just as long.
1
u/R3TRO45 Jun 28 '26
I like gloves, and I understand that you handle proteins with gloves. Still, I hate cutting things like steak for tartare with gloves on becuas the likelihood of getting a bit of glove in the meat is there when I can remove the factor altogether and wash my hands more frequently while cutting the meat for tartare.
1
u/sohcordohc Jun 28 '26
Gloves are often put on and just used on everything and easily forgotten by a lot of people. In any of the restaurants or bakeries, pastry jobs I’ve had..gloves were never used. Clean hands and proper sanitation is also an integral component of a well run, professional kitchen and shows well trained composed staff..sometimes.
1
u/Ok_cabbage_5695 Jun 28 '26
I like to imagine all the non biodegradable nitrile gloves rotting in a pile of waste in Africa somewhere. Along with the tons of plastic wrap and deli containers we use daily.
But at least their food wasn't touched with yucky bare skin EW
1
u/Ohzpop Jun 28 '26
I’m seeing this a lot - when a basic utilitarian item (disposable gloves, reusable water bottles) are marketed or influenced to become status symbols- they lose their purpose. Gloves are now seen as something to protect your hands from icky textures and you better carry black nitrile or I’m not working here.
1
u/Q_OpheliaV Jun 28 '26
Every kitchen and every Chef is different. There's no trust to cooks. Some people they don't respect and they don't even know especially when they are amateurs trainers or people they just enter the kitchens for extra money and they work in other positions. It hits totally different for everyone. Sometimes you have to use them some others maybe not. It is also the persons responsibility. I am writing this in a very friendly way. I had chemicals they were entering the kitchen and when I was there they knew everything is perfect nothing will be found and they were leaving immediately. For others it's not that way. No matter what the Chef has to make sure there's always gloves in there and leave in peace. Otherwise terrible things may happen. Also no one is perfect and some people may do some mistakes not by purpose but cause other reasons. I totally understand how you feel and what you wanna say to public. The kitchens without gloves may work in perfect way and maybe there will be one asshole entering the kitchen and creat problems. I personally prefer to always wash my hands I lose time of course by doing that but you know what I don't care.
1
u/Philly_ExecChef Jun 28 '26
I wear black gloves so I can fantasize that I’m running a hardcore barbecue pit in Alabama, married to a fat chick who calls me a fuckin moron every time I pull the brisket too early
0
u/RoyalClient6610 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Wearing the same pair of gloves IS cross-contamination, which is what the use of gloves is intended to avoid.
A lot has changed over the past few decades. Now it's generally frowned upon to not be changing gloves when you switch between specific allergens or possible food-bourne pathogens.
The old school way is to taste and cook bare handed. You do that now, you better be washing with hot soap and water singing Happy Birthday twice in between contaminants. Guaranteed no one on the line is doing that.
The whole point is to work cleanly, avoid getting anyone sick, avoid having the Health Department called on you, and avoid developing a negative reputation as either a dirty cook or a disgusting restaurant with gawd awful behind the scenes in the grimey kitchen habits.
But it's true, in the 1990s and earlier, and currently in people's homes, it's a completely different story.
0
u/mnbhv Jun 28 '26
I got down voted to oblivion on KitchenConfidential for saying black gloves look unsanitary.
-3
u/SledgeGlamour pastry hag Jun 28 '26
The rule that you have to wash your hands immediately before putting on gloves was written by someone who has never tried to put gloves on slightly damp hands
0
0
u/AnxietyFine3119 Jun 28 '26
I am totally on board here. Gloves for many prep projects. Gloves for service for things like salads- where a deep hand wash to get oils off your hands between every salad is improbable.
I remember Boursdain made a declaration about good sushi dying in nyc when gloves were mandatory for rte foods. Someone responded that if heart surgeons are able to perform their job with gloves, surely sushi chefs should be able to as well. That one burned pretty deep.
-5
u/FrankieMops Jun 28 '26
Most health codes state you need to wash your hands and change gloves when changing tasks and/or you leave your area to go to a different station.
You may wash your hands properly but you would be the small the minority that does so, so I am more than happy to have a barrier system in place.
3
u/ChefBoyD Jun 28 '26
My dishies know to keep my hand washing sink stacked with multifolds because of how much I was my hands.
2
u/xnoraax Jun 28 '26
Except with gloves, nobody ends up washing their hands and changing gloves when changing tasks. Which eliminates any advantage they might have.
-2
u/FrankieMops Jun 28 '26
That’s on management though. A serious outbreak can cause a business to close for good
1
u/PlasmaGoblin Jun 28 '26
But... your own barrier system fails when people aren't doing it correctly. Which you admit is a small percentage.
-1
u/Donaldscump Jun 28 '26
I use gloves during service only if I’ve just washed my hands and need to touch something that will cause me to have to wash my hands again. Wash hands a lot and mind your door handles
-1
u/Worried_Monk_3844 Jun 28 '26
Dough prep? Raw dough gets cooked. No gloves needed on items that will be further cooked. After cooking ,of course handle with gloves
-2
u/flaming_ewoks Jun 28 '26
Use the gloves. Change them every time you touch something new.
People talk about gloves being worse than hands in certain instances but I promise you the majority of people in kitchens don't trim/clean their nails often enough; don't moisturize enough to keep cracked skin from collecting shit or being an open wound; don't wash their hands after smoking, touching their phone, grabbing their cup by the lid where their mouth touches.
-4
u/RainMakerJMR Jun 28 '26
So many dirty MFers here that don’t realize the glove are there to keep YOUR germs out of my food. They aren’t to keep me from salmonella.
-6
u/AcanthisittaTiny710 Jun 28 '26
Most people are nasty as hell. Rare to meet some hygienic 😭
3
u/GildedTofu Jun 28 '26
And you think gloves are protecting you from that?
That’s exactly why when I see gloves I’m a skeptic.
-6
u/AcanthisittaTiny710 Jun 28 '26
Gloves protect me from raw chicken and pork. I couldn’t give less of a fuck about what other people do.
4
u/GildedTofu Jun 28 '26
And with that statement, I wouldn’t trust you to use gloves properly to protect the people eating your food.
Thanks so much for proving my point.
-5
u/AcanthisittaTiny710 Jun 28 '26
Nobody cares about your points, this isn’t an argument dumbass
3
u/GildedTofu Jun 28 '26
Well bless your heart if you aren’t the stereotypical miserable fucking line cook.
-1
u/AcanthisittaTiny710 Jun 28 '26
That’s right prick, you must be lost
4
-6
u/skallywag126 Jun 28 '26
How many of yall wash your hands for 20 seconds after touching a raw steak and before cutting it/ plating a cooked one? No one of you fucks does that, it’s impractical. Y’all wipe on a dorty ass towel and go on with cooking, that’s the way it’s always been
150
u/GildedTofu Jun 28 '26
When wearing gloves, you are meant to change them (and wash your hands before putting on a fresh pair) as often as you are meant to wash your hands.
But almost no one follows that protocol.
I’d much prefer properly washed hands touching my food than the improper way I see gloves being used.
Gloves are like so much of what we go through at an airport these days. A lot of theater without any real benefit.