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A lot of this was common in the US and Europe a hundred years ago, but laws and changing culture have stopped it. Just look at snake oil, or the many other “rem

A lot of this was common in the US and Europe a hundred years ago, but laws and changing culture have stopped it. Just look at snake oil, or the many other “remedies”. See, eg, “ Down and Out in Paris and London” by Orwell, where among many other things he talks about how the restaurant kitchens in early 1900s Paris were extremely gross and dangerous, but because the front of the restaurants were clean, the customers seemed happy. “A customer orders, for example, a piece of toast. Somebody, pressed with work in a cellar deep underground, has to prepare it. How can he stop and say to himself, 'This toast is to be eaten—I must make it eatable'? All he knows is that it must look right and must be ready in three minutes. Some large drops of sweat fall from his forehead on to the toast. Why should he worry? Presently the toast falls among the filthy sawdust on the floor. Why trouble to make a new piece? It is much quicker to wipe the sawdust off. On the way upstairs the toast falls again, butter side down. Another wipe is all it needs. And so with everything.” China is at an interesting point because they’ve developed economically so much in the last fifty years. Their culture and law enforcement hasn’t caught up yet while the internet has, so this is shared with us.

oefrha 5y ago
> how the restaurant kitchens in early 1900s Paris were extremely gross and dangerous, but because the front of the restaurants were clean, the customers seemed happy. I heard a lot of restaurants in China these days, including takeout outlets, make live video feeds of their kitchens available online so that customers can be assured that the kitchens are hygienic. Of course that doesn’t tell you about the quality of source materials.
- dflock 5y ago
  Well, a video feed of _a_ kitchen, at least.
  - rciorba 5y ago
    I've ordered from such a place in Munich. The novelty factor made it entertaining to watch and at some point I could identify my order being prepared. Not sure how many people you could deceive before you start to get called out, if the feed was of a different kitchen
code_duck 5y ago
I’m not sure much has changed in regard to the anecdote you shared. Kitchens are under a lot of pressure to get food out quickly and finish all of an order at the same time. I worked at a restaurant in the 90s as my very first job, and one day someone dropped a steak on the floor after it was done. I said oh dear, I’ll get another from the fridge. The cooks told me no, just wash it off and serve it, reasoning “If we bring out every else’s meal and they guy who ordered the steak has to wait 10 minutes, he’ll be mad”. My guess was that he would be angrier to know that he was served a steak that had been dropped on our filthy floor and given the choice, would probably prefer to wait for a different one.
- supportlocal4h 5y ago
  Your anecdote sparked an old thought for me. In your story, the customer would perceive the service as inferior if their food was late. A cook, knowing that the service isn't really inferior (there was just one little snag), justifies a little action to put appearances back closer to reality. That last sentence is a study for me. I see it in everybody including myself. Somehow we convince ourselves that our ideal is the normal and the actual reality is an aberation. Then we rationalize little efforts to hide the aberation. It can be hard to acknowledge the truth about ourselves and accept the consequences. But it is very hard to improve otherwise. (At the same time we need to be careful of imposing overly severe consequences for mistakes.)
- yojo 5y ago
  My last boss worked at a sandwich shop in college (Pasadena, CA). One shift he knocked over a 5 gallon bucket of olives, which spilled all over the floor. He was mortified, but the owner seemed unperturbed. He handed him a broom and a dustpan and told him to get them all back in the bucket.
  - code_duck 5y ago
    That reminds me of a story I heard from a friend in the Midwest who worked at a factory assembling frozen Italian dinners. He said that part of his job was to sweep up spilled grated cheese from the floor so they could use it in dinners.
elefanten 5y ago
And yet none of those examples compare to consciously using known poisons as a replacement for or additive to real food. That’s cynical brutality on another level.
- kixiQu 5y ago
  How about preserving milk with formaldehyde? https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poison-squad/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poison-squ... https://allthatsinteresting.com/poison-squad-harvey-wiley https://allthatsinteresting.com/poison-squad-harvey-wiley One of the tricks here is that "known" poisons are the same as "agreed-upon" poisons -- or that the definition of "poison" isn't as clear as you might assume. If one compares the US/Canada and EU restrictions of additives with the assumption that the latter are founded, you'd come to the conclusion that the only thing North America must have more of than cynical brutality is cancer. However, while I'm not going to say they're right, there are typically plenty of folks in HN comment sections happy to say that many of the EU's food restrictions are ascientific pandering. Everyone has some intuitive threshold about what they'd consider reasonable and what they wouldn't, but they don't always align. Acrylamide from roasting coffee? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-judge-rules-coffee-requires-cancer-warning-n861401 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-judge-rules-... Nitrates and nitrites are indisputably poisonous as hell, so are cured meats out of bounds? https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34615621 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34615621
  - robocat 5y ago
    > formaldehyde As a metabolic intermediate, formaldehyde is present at low levels in most living organisms. Formaldehyde can be found naturally in food up to the levels of 300 to 400 mg/kg, including fruits and vegetables (e.g. pear, apple, green onion), meats, fish, crustacean and dried mushroom, etc. Ingestion of a small amount of formaldehyde is unlikely to cause any acute effect. The main health concern of formaldehyde is its cancer causing potential. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) considered that there was sufficient evidence for carcinogenicity in humans upon occupational exposure via inhalation. On the other hand, WHO in 2005 when setting its Drinking Water Guidelines considered that there was no definitive evidence for carcinogenicity upon ingestion.

oefrha 5y ago

> how the restaurant kitchens in early 1900s Paris were extremely gross and dangerous, but because the front of the restaurants were clean, the customers seemed happy. I heard a lot of restaurants in China these days, including takeout outlets, make live video feeds of their kitchens available online so that customers can be assured that the kitchens are hygienic. Of course that doesn’t tell you about the quality of source materials.

dflock 5y ago
Well, a video feed of _a_ kitchen, at least.
- rciorba 5y ago
  I've ordered from such a place in Munich. The novelty factor made it entertaining to watch and at some point I could identify my order being prepared. Not sure how many people you could deceive before you start to get called out, if the feed was of a different kitchen

code_duck 5y ago

I’m not sure much has changed in regard to the anecdote you shared. Kitchens are under a lot of pressure to get food out quickly and finish all of an order at the same time. I worked at a restaurant in the 90s as my very first job, and one day someone dropped a steak on the floor after it was done. I said oh dear, I’ll get another from the fridge. The cooks told me no, just wash it off and serve it, reasoning “If we bring out every else’s meal and they guy who ordered the steak has to wait 10 minutes, he’ll be mad”. My guess was that he would be angrier to know that he was served a steak that had been dropped on our filthy floor and given the choice, would probably prefer to wait for a different one.

supportlocal4h 5y ago
Your anecdote sparked an old thought for me. In your story, the customer would perceive the service as inferior if their food was late. A cook, knowing that the service isn't really inferior (there was just one little snag), justifies a little action to put appearances back closer to reality. That last sentence is a study for me. I see it in everybody including myself. Somehow we convince ourselves that our ideal is the normal and the actual reality is an aberation. Then we rationalize little efforts to hide the aberation. It can be hard to acknowledge the truth about ourselves and accept the consequences. But it is very hard to improve otherwise. (At the same time we need to be careful of imposing overly severe consequences for mistakes.)
yojo 5y ago
My last boss worked at a sandwich shop in college (Pasadena, CA). One shift he knocked over a 5 gallon bucket of olives, which spilled all over the floor. He was mortified, but the owner seemed unperturbed. He handed him a broom and a dustpan and told him to get them all back in the bucket.
- code_duck 5y ago
  That reminds me of a story I heard from a friend in the Midwest who worked at a factory assembling frozen Italian dinners. He said that part of his job was to sweep up spilled grated cheese from the floor so they could use it in dinners.

elefanten 5y ago

And yet none of those examples compare to consciously using known poisons as a replacement for or additive to real food. That’s cynical brutality on another level.

kixiQu 5y ago
How about preserving milk with formaldehyde? https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poison-squad/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poison-squ... https://allthatsinteresting.com/poison-squad-harvey-wiley https://allthatsinteresting.com/poison-squad-harvey-wiley One of the tricks here is that "known" poisons are the same as "agreed-upon" poisons -- or that the definition of "poison" isn't as clear as you might assume. If one compares the US/Canada and EU restrictions of additives with the assumption that the latter are founded, you'd come to the conclusion that the only thing North America must have more of than cynical brutality is cancer. However, while I'm not going to say they're right, there are typically plenty of folks in HN comment sections happy to say that many of the EU's food restrictions are ascientific pandering. Everyone has some intuitive threshold about what they'd consider reasonable and what they wouldn't, but they don't always align. Acrylamide from roasting coffee? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-judge-rules-coffee-requires-cancer-warning-n861401 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-judge-rules-... Nitrates and nitrites are indisputably poisonous as hell, so are cured meats out of bounds? https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34615621 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34615621
- robocat 5y ago
  > formaldehyde As a metabolic intermediate, formaldehyde is present at low levels in most living organisms. Formaldehyde can be found naturally in food up to the levels of 300 to 400 mg/kg, including fruits and vegetables (e.g. pear, apple, green onion), meats, fish, crustacean and dried mushroom, etc. Ingestion of a small amount of formaldehyde is unlikely to cause any acute effect. The main health concern of formaldehyde is its cancer causing potential. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) considered that there was sufficient evidence for carcinogenicity in humans upon occupational exposure via inhalation. On the other hand, WHO in 2005 when setting its Drinking Water Guidelines considered that there was no definitive evidence for carcinogenicity upon ingestion.