Hygiene on Masterchef

What about the Hairy Bikers with all those rings and bracelets on, they must be full of germs! Yuk!

But their (Hairy Bikers) food is REAL food and looks delicious!

I notice these things all the time. I remember a series of cake making by Fiona Cairns who I think made Kate and Will's wedding cake. She wore a wedding and huge engagement rings when rubbing pastry ingredients together, clogging up the mount and diamonds. Chefs and contestants scratch their heads, wipe noses whilst handling food, and sometimes double dip their tasting spoons.

I`ve always thought, right from when he used to appear on This Morning, that John Torode himself never looked very hygienic.

I agree number, and I dislike the way his tongue comes out to meet the food when tasting.

What about the way they all arrange the food on the plates? There's not a bit they haven't mauled by the time they've finished. I'd rather have my food looking a bit less fancy but not be touched so much.

This thread reminds me of when we were kids and our next door neighbour would bring cakes or scones or something else she'd baked and my mother would gracefully accept it and as soon as the neighbour had left it would all go in the bin we children would protest "Aw...!" and my mother would reply "She has long fingernails and doesn't keep them clean".

I dislike a lack of hygiene as much as the next person, and I've often thought when a plate of food is brought to me in a restaurant all beautifully presented "I wonder how many fingers have been at it?" - but to be honest I don't know how it is possible to control that all the time.

You need only read Kitchen Confidential to find out what it gets like in a hot, busy kitchen. And when we travel I've had to learn to turn a blind eye. The worst for me is when you see a cook or chef outside the kitchen door of a restaurant having a fag! Happens all the time on the continent.

When we were first married, we lived in a small rented cottage, owned by a local alderman, who also owned a rather posh hotel nearby. We had to go there to pay the rent, at the back door, of course, which was also the kitchen door, and we regularly saw the chefs preparing the fancy meals with cigarettes hanging from their mouths.

A friend's daughter waitressed in the Dorchester in her student holidays, and told how in hot weather the chefs discarded the trousers and tops and cooked commando style in just their white aprons. The view from the back was interesting. (She married one of them . . .)

You have to be so careful of splashes!

A friend of mine worked at the Dorchester when she was a catering student in the 70's and said it was the dirtiest kitchen she'd ever been in. Don't think she came across any nudity though.

In George Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London', he gives and account of his experiences working in Parisian restaurant kitchens. Put me right off the idea of eating in Paris but I'd hoped it was better in this century. I wouldn't be too optimistic though!

I was thinking about this a week or two ago while watching all the blonde pony tails and fringes dripping into the food
I don't understand Masterchef. A small crowd of people we have vaguely heard of shuffle in, with varying abilities to boil an egg. As the weeks go by there is much staring into the eyeballs of John and Greg, and they go off in batches to do lunchtime shifts in restaurants where they are shouted at and taught to arrange three prepared ingredients on a plate with a smear of mash. On their return to the studio they then all produce miracles of haute cuisine. How does this happen? I know I don't concentrate but I've never noticed a mention. let alone sight. of any lessons.

We're always commenting about the hygiene standards on Masterchef but far and above that I'd like to take a hedge trimmer to Dick Strawbridge's moustache. Watching him eat makes me feel sick.

I really can't see that a chef/cook smoking a cigarette outside the kitchen is a hygiene issue.

annodomini have we read the same books? I have never forgotten what Orwell said about a steak. 'The more expensive the steak, the more people have handled it before it arrives at your table'.
My worst nightmare of a hotel kitchen was in London where I stayed with two children. I had to leave for Heathrow and get up before 6 a.m. The Hotel proprietor - an Indian- told me to go into the ktchen and help myself to tea and cornflakes. The state of the gas stoves was terrible. Black fat caked inches thick, ragged tea towels hanging on the backs of chairs.
I have never eaten an Indian meal since.
As to MS it has descended into a farce. Its time it was taken off.

elegran phew, much fanning of hands in front of face. Reminds me of a photo of an England rugby team that was taken from the back in a similar state of undress. No pinnies though.

I never went to a fondue party when they were all the rage [Abigails Party land here I think] but, had I been to one I don't think I could have coped with everyone dipping their food into the same bowl.

JessM She also said that they lifted the pinnies to salute the waitresses.

absent. Hopefully the chef washed his hands when he'd finished his ciggie.

Oh Elegran - if that's true it's hilarious! Reminds me of that specsavers ad where the bloke goes into a sauna and then realises he's in Ramsay's kitchen .
My son used to work in a restaurant and said there used to be a pot of chocolate sauce (for the ice-cream dessert) perpetually on the stove. They just used to add more ingredients when it was getting low. He also mentioned how many cockroaches were running around after hours... Of course he only mentioned this AFTER I'd eaten there - though I didn't have the ice-cream thank goodness!

Just watching tonight's episode of Celebrity Masterchef, and can't get this thread out of my mind watching the floppy hair, designer stubble, dangling earrings , tattoos - and I haven't yet seen anyone washing and properly drying their hands. Hygiene horror!

Also, I haven't heard of any of the celebrities, but then I rarely have - bit of that particular loop.

I worked in a hospital in Greater London, and one summer, when the kitchens were being refurbished, they set up a barbecue every lunchtime in a grassy area outside the kitchens. Someone working in an office which overlooked this area saw the chef go into the bushes, have a pee, then go straight back to his cooking. He reported this and the chap was never see again.

The Hairy Bikers with all their rings and bracelets make me cringe.