Tilly the Tart Caution! Cutlery …

“Clean hands, Sansa. Whatever you do, make certain your hands are clean.”

Lord Petyr Baelish, Little finger

Fictional character from Game of Thrones

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

There. I feel somewhat better now. Not much, but definitely feel an improvement.

I love café society and restaurants and eating out. I love trying new places as well as returning to firm favourites. But something that will spoil the experience anywhere is having to ask for clean cutlery when I see the untrained (I surmise) staff handle the cutlery by the blades, tines or bowls of eating implements.

‘Safe food handling: it’s about respect—for the food and those who eat it.’ – found online but unattributed.

My vivid imagination questions whether they have washed their hands recently – even if they have, they should not be touching the parts of knives, forks and spoons which will go into another person’s mouth – or maybe they have rubbed their nose, or picked it, ferreted in an ear for that elusive and bothersome piece of wax.

Horror of horrors, maybe they have visited the bathroom and not bothered to wash their hands or – dastardly habit – merely trickled water over one or two or three fingers in a foolhardy pretence of being hygienic and sensible.

It used to be that one was astute and did not eat raw foods in certain countries, but now, with the rise in hepatitis A, maybe we need to be more canny in more food outlets.(Hepatitis A is a liver infection, passed on by way of food – usually related to unwashed hands handling the food.)

If the waiting staff are not properly informed about hygiene and how to handle cutlery, it is entirely possible that those preparing salads are also slapdash about soap and water.

A great training motto:

‘Act like you just chopped up ten jalapeños and need to take out your

contact lenses.’

Plastic gloves are not necessarily the answer either. Health inspectors some years ago found they could be as big a risk as chipped nail polish, grubby fingernails and unwashed hands.

A friend – who shall remain anonymous! – once told me that the staff were reminded EVERY day that whenever they visited the bathroom, for whatever reason, they MUST wash their hands. As the industry was connected to food and cosmetics packaging, all staff were issued with gloves.

One member of staff was seen to emerge from a cubicle, cross to the hand basins, remove said gloves, wash hands with vigour, dry them with care … and replace the gloves to return to work.

Without wishing to be freaky-deaky about hygiene (I have licked the wooden spoon when cooking … ‘Challenges of cooking? Making sure nobody sees you lick the spoon.’- Anon.), I am well aware that one of finest and simplest ways to reduce, if not eliminate, food poisoning, gastric upsets and galloping gutrot, is to encourage everyone to wash their hands.

‘Your hands have been places. Your food shouldn’t go there with them.’ – a health recommendation found online

But remember, dropping food on the floor gives it added flavour. But the five-second rule only works if your hands are clean first …!

Having banged on about hands, I’m not wild about finding someone else’s hair in my fodder … and have suspicious thoughts of the the replacement being the same food, on a different place, perhaps more added, with the offending hair removed!

‘Wash your hands, say your prayers, because Jesus and germs are everywhere.’ – seems to be an anonymous quip.

As an adjunct to my many whinges about greed and wasting food, UberFacts posted a Tweet recently: more people are dying from obesity than from malnutrition. By all means eat plenty, enjoy as much as you can comfortably manage, but don’t pile up food and then leave it.

‘If you empty it, fill it. If you fill it, eat it.’ – Anon.

But when all is said and done,

‘After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.’

— Oscar Wilde

Tilly

Olive: I fully agree with Tilly on this subject.