TV chefs

In 1946 because I was alone I took a job as waitress in a cafe. The boss would take the leavings off customers plates and serve on another customers.
To get away from my father when he retired my mother took a job in a pub restaurant. She perspired a lot and was in the habit of wiping the sweat from her brow with the tea towel. Food was arranged on the plate using hands and after using the toilet none of staff washed their hands. My husband and I never ate out.

My cookery teacher would be furious if you so much as touched food with your fingers - how standards have changed!

This is nothing new either. I remember reading George Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London" at school where he jobbed in kitchens. OK, different times, but, it would seem, maybe not so different!

In the 1970s I worked in a factory making chocolate items. Any spilt chocolate was scooped up and put back in the machine, irrespective of where it fell. A lady used to use her finger to put a stripe on the back of chocolate brazil nuts. I won't tell you what she did with her finger every so often. In summer, the factory windows were open and wasps used to sit on the (still liquid) chocolates. We were instructed to flick the wasps off and put the chocs back under the sluice.

A friend worked in a factory making sticky nut bars. They had to cool overnight. Her job in the morning was to remove the dead cockroaches stuck in the toffee before sending them to the packing department!!

It WAS a long time ago but I wonder if anything is any different now.

I never watch any TV chefs now. All they do is rehash recipes which have been around for decades. I think hygiene has gone down the plughole in recent years.

My pet hate is watching chefs prepare food in everyday clothes and no coverup, I do wear a clean apron each day as I’ve been out and about. I’ve done this for years much to the amusement if my family.