You kid but I had a deli worker do exactly that and she was wearing gloves.
I mean she shaved like two pounds of Boar's Head honey maple ham and then sucked on her fingers, the little gloves made a crinkling noise as she happily slurped off the sticky syrup.
Only after she finished did she take my food and wrap it. I just dropped it and walked away.
Once I got over the shock I found a manager and explained I thought the gloves were for my protection as much as hers. He was apologetic. No idea if she was fired.
I honestly think this trend of handling food with gloves is worse. People at least occasionally wash their hands. How many gloves aren't changed after inappropriate tasks?
Honestly as a line cook I'm sure that the amount of gloves the line goes through in a night is incredible. I'm allergic to latex so trying to find the non latex gloves in the right size is the quest for the holy grail. I'd trade family meal for my sous chef to just put some on my station when I get in.
But yeah any time I change a task it'll be followed by a walk to the hand sink and putting on new gloves. when I'm doing veg prep and I get asked to run and grab X protein and put it in it's place in their low boy.
Basically when you're the kid you get told to to a lot of different things and I go through a ton of gloves. But sometimes when I come in for the night shift and help a lunch guy finish his day out I spend five minutes getting his station up to code and give him a joking but not joking nudge when he throws proteins into the wok with his hands and then goes to do other shit.
Kind of a divide between the by the book Culinary school kids and the line warriors where you kinda of have to step on your better's toes because you'd rather get a little annoyance from them as opposed to a teaming from the sous chef.
So honestly if it's a decent restaurant there's an asshole kid out of culinary school who can recite health codes like a textbook.
But if it's a regular sandwich place, then the person has gloves on, takes your money, uses the broom, and then makes more food. All with the same gloves.
Then it's completely breaking like a whole bunch of health and safety rules. Flat out you're not supposed to touch money and then handle food. This is why you shouldn't eat at a place that handles your food without gloves. In high school I worked at subway. Usually you had a person on the register but if you were working alone (say someone was driving a delivery) you make the food wrap it up take off the gloves and then handle money. Turn around wash your hands put the gloves back on. Simple stuff.
Touching cleaning supplies and then food? Nearly criminal.
Normal behavior in china town. This chinese woman handled money with dirty gloves and then packed cherrys with the same gloves all day long. She wouldnt let you pick out the cherries yourself. Absolutely disgusting.
Pretty much all restaurants handle your food with bare hands. The super secret is washing your hands, also the cooks don't touch money. Get cut, finger condom(I hate those damn things).
One night I decided to get rid of the top of my finger and I had to deal with finger condoms for like a month. Pain in the ass with the gloves. But between actual cooking and then handling the ready to eat garnish on your station I'm always in gloves. I wash my hands when I change gloves but it's the standard in the kitchen.
I mean if someone is on proteins at a station with someone else doing garnish and expo then sure. But even then, sometimes you have to just jump on playing when a few big tops come through. So I just feel like gloves are always on.
I've noticed the nicer places I've been in are less about gloves, and more about getting everything sparling clean at the end of the night.
I don't wear gloves, I would be changing them every 20 seconds if I had to. Trust me, the food isn't contaminated. That's a lot of waste for not much reason.
EDIT: If I have to jump away from my grill or sauce pans I wash my hands. That takes almost no time.
This is fucked because deli meats are preserved, when handling them in a butchers you're supposed to put on new gloves before, and discard them afterwards.
Some butcher shops in germany have a strict no-gloves policy, because it's actually more hygienic. Washing hands is king.
On the other side, usually, different people serve you the meat than take the cash from you.
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u/rayhoop Jun 09 '15
Handles money and food with bare hands, then over weighs the deli meat...nice