What’s really in your meal?

I have to be honest with you – chefs are doing the job for one of two reasons. Either they absolutely love the food, job and ethos or, they are doing it as it’s the only option available to them. Frankly, the peanuts that you get paid for working 14 hour shifts, often for six days straight, wouldn’t make any job worth it for the money alone. At the restaurant I worked at over my holidays, which would be considered fancy by some and expensive by most, one might assume that staff have a better living. That is not the case – we calculated my co-workers wages at £3.35/hr, if you took into account his salary and lack of any pay for overtime. I was not nearly so lucky – I worked for completely free – but I had chosen to do so to build my skillset and pursue my career. I was being paid in the knowledge and skills that I learnt. But, I think it’s imperative that you bear in mind that chefs are not all there for the food. Some really are only doing it as it’s the only option available to them!

With that in mind, you have to also accept that chefs who want to work for the love and joy of it will not necessarily gravitate towards some of the dining establishments you might frequent on a regular basis. You don’t expect the love and attention to detail that you might see in a fine dining restaurant in your local takeaway, so don’t expect the same standards of care and hygiene! It’s one of the reasons that I shy away from so many small, hipster eateries with extremely trendy overhanging haircuts, amazingly ring laden fingers and more potential causes of anything from an innocuous hair, to a night of the shits. And those are the smallest of issues in large kitchens. You can hardly begin to imagine the problems that you don’t see. Roaches in flour bags, frogs in unwashed salad leaves, the list goes on and on.

I’m not saying that high end chefs are immune from hygiene errors, but we certainly take a lot more care. Things from basic food safety certificates to having a head chef scream at you for not washing your hands thoroughly all give me much more faith in similar restaurants.

So what can you do? The simple answer is to do it yourself! Cooking for yourself doesn’t guarantee you an escape from hairs in soup, or as my girlfriend once discovered a rogue fly that flew into her salad. But it certainly means you won’t have anyone to blame but yourself.