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Originally Posted by PeteMcCracken  "Steve, this was 16 years ago in 1993. The business standards and health codes regarding returns hadn't gotten that far yet...."
Gee, as a "fry cook" in 1969, I knew better than to "recycle" food that went out to a table!
Even "wrapped" crackers, butter, bread baskets, etc., were discarded.
It is beyond my comprehension that ANYTHING that leaves the kitchen for service could possibly end up anywhere other than the TRASH! |
Gee, it's just the way the business was back then and my experience in the Chicago and Atlanta markets. It's not like I'm making this sh!t up.
Pete, I started in this business in 1977, back then every hotel and just about every restaurant I worked at, (as a busboy to dishwasher to line cook) even a premier place like the Stouffer's in Oak Brook IL had a recycle bucket at the dish table for butter, cracker packages and if it were the case....1/2&1/2 containers. They started to disappear more in the 80's with awareness to food contamination thanks to NIFI and local codes but there were common-place in those markets. There were even some hold outs until the early 90's....if I remember correctly McKendrick's steak house in Atlanta Georgia had a butter bucket and they opened in 1995 but I was just a Sous at that place and it wasn't my policy. Having just been let go as the Exec of another place I kinda needed the job to....let's see.....pay for my condo and food maybe. So.............
My father, who actually was an Aircraft Mechanic by training and trade (and a dam good one for over 50 years with UAL), took a second job as the night manager/cook just after they went on strike in the very early 70's. The place was called The Little Corporal. It was in the United of America building in the downtown Chicago Loop. The stories he told me made my stomach turn as a little kid and then found them to be true when I actually went to work.
Personally, I hated many of the standards back then and when I started to work in positions I could affect change, I did so. But as a busboy /dishwasher or Utility cook....... if I wanted the work and experience, I didn't buck the system..... that is unless I wanted be unemployed and or see the business end of a plate, hotel pan and even knives that the Chef would have conveniently thrown for even suggesting that we didn't recycle his precious butter or peeling and scraps.
He!!, we even had slop buckets in the coolers for onion, carrot, celery, tomato, potato scraps as well as beef trim chicken bones/skins scraps for stocks. Again, it was just the way it was back then and part of my point......... what we got away with.
There is no way I am condoning the return of food to a guest and God forbid a different guest now or in the last 20 years unless it was the policy of the owners or my superiors or a general and local industry practice. It's all part of a leaning curve and..... In fact.... something I explained in the second paragraph of my post.
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Although not too early in my career...it was early enough that I hadn't come to the conclusion that I would just fire a new one, no questions asked. Although I will say that most other dishes...ie; salads, sands, pastas and apps were all re made. Just part of a personal and industry learning curve. It's just about a guarantee that most anyone who started in this business after 1995 would be shocked at what we were able to get away with back then.
Thinking back......I know I am .....just a bit.
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Then again, I guess, even in 1969.... Californian's were just leaps and bounds ahead of us lowly then Midwesterner and (then and now) Southerners.
Oh yeah! My apologies to Eloki, the original poster and starter of the topic. I had no idea that a simple off the cuff comment and background to a story of something that happened umpteen years ago would have derailed the original topic. I'm done with this one.
