Food & Safety In Restaurants

by Rob Hampson
(Durban, South Africa)

A few years ago I took a two year gap year to the United Kingdom (I'm from South Africa) and worked in quite a few different places...

Including a chain of up market restaurants as a barmen and sometimes a waiter (of which I hated doing).

We were all trained to strictly adhere to the health and safety regulations like washing your hands often and when washing them, to put the plug in the basin, fill it with water, turn the tap off, wash your hands, and then remove the plug... A process to ensure you didn't touch the tap after you had washed your hands. A tap that you had made dirty by turning it on with your dirty hands initially.

A process that no one ever did!

You just didn't have the time to do that when you've got 20 more plates of food to deliver to diners! Hmmmm...

That didn't actually worry me to much. What did worry me was some of the chefs! Of whom I sometimes had a particular hate for as well (one of the main reasons I hated waitering; bi-polar, highly strung, arrogant, self-centered, unreasonable, screaming lunatics - Just a few words that often described them!) Sorry about the rant; back to what worried me:

Some of the chefs, one in particular, didn't have much thought about health & safety protocol. There wasn't much thought to where he placed his hands before he used them to arrange someones starter or chop up someones food. Like scratching in very unappropriate places and coughing into his hands etc.

Of course I never ever ate any food he prepared! But it also got me wondering, how many restaurants have I been into and ordered food and had a similar chef make my food after he'd been scratching somewhere he shouldn't have been!

Now that is a worrying thought!

Then again, I suppose I haven't died yet!

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