I worked in restaurants and catering houses for years before opening up my own business. I always said that I wished I would have kept a diary because it would have been a best seller.
When I was in college I worked in the salad and sandwich department in a very swanky resort. Every day we put out a salad bar and cold buffet to keep the guests "occupied" while they were waiting for their luncheon entre. We had very large meat and cheese trays. Each day the older ones were combined until the meat started getting slimy and the cheese crusty.
The first time I got caught throwing slimy deli meat out, the chef reamed me out, and informed me that we were out to save money, not throw it in the garbage. When he told me what to do with it, I'm sure I could have caught a few flies when my jaw dropped.
I was told to rinse off the meat, julienne it along with the crusty cheese, slice up onions, green peppers, and mushrooms, and marinate it together in Italian dressing. Voila!! It is now known as Italian Meat Salad! ( I looked for a barf emoticon...couldn't find one)
I got very good at sneaking out to the buffet, grabbing the bowl, and dumping it in the garbage by the pot washing station. Of course, this was before security cameras...
When I moved to Florida in '83, I worked in quite a few restaurants and saw stuff that would make a cockroach gag; including deliberately serving spoiled food to the customers ("You know these old people...they're on so much medication, they can't tell whether it's bad or not"). I did walk out and quit on that one. The health department had issues with that place until they finally closed down.
Yet, most of these places still passed inspections.
And this is a state that will not legalize home kitchens because of sanitary reasons.
I think times have changed. I worked in a fast food rest. as a teenager... 25yrs ago. When I closed at 10 we would be there until after midnight many times cleaning. You cleaned everything, you took it apart, soaked it, scrubbed it, rinsed it etc. The floors got mopped with fresh water each night. When I worked a day shift and it was slow, the manager would always say "If you can lean, you can clean" you didnt dare stand still. You were wiping counters, emptying the ketchup bottles, washing them and putting in fresh ketchup etc. I dont remember seeing anything gross, but then again as a teenager you dont always pay attention to that kind of thing.
couldn't these horrible kitchens and bakeries be reported to the health department?
The last one serving the spoiled food was reported, and reported, and reported, until they finally closed...and that one was a national chain.
Most of the restaurants around here, (at least when I was working in them) had their own grapevine. Most of the managers and owners all knew each other, and when the health department would hit one restaurant, the manager would get on the phone and pass it along. Everyone that had to, cleaned up their act until the inspection was done.
Please don't get the idea that they are all like that here. I've seen a few where you could literally eat off the floor if you wanted to they were so clean. But the owners and managers were also working owners and managers...the key word being "working". They weren't afraid to pick up a mop or a buspan if they had to. As a result, the rest of the staff worked as a team because they saw that the head honchos weren't afraid to get their hands dirty.
All of this is super gross! I won't even stick my fingers in to tatse food I am cooking for my own family. I have a drawer of plastic stuff right there and I use it. My mom comes to visit and she is all abut the fingers YUCK! Can't tell you how many time I yell at her to get out of my kitchen. She tried that nonsence when I was making my DD's super girl b-day cake and I was pissed. I was tired and she had stuck her finger in my icing when i turned to reach for a scraper. needless to say i yelled and a huge honkin plop for icing from the ovbious finger scrape when right in the sink. And then I grabbed a fresh scrapper and told her off. She wasn't too happy but I am so sick of this casual attitude around food! People have to eat it! Really bad thing is she used to work as a line cook. She knows he way around a kitchen but the finger thing is my biggest pet pieve! Even my kiddoes know to go to the drawer and get a splastic spoon and ask for a taste. They will even drop that one in the sink and go back for a fresh spoon. 
And thats just the normal cooking/tatsing routine for our home. I am doing something right.
Due to food allergies we seldom eat out-PHEW! Nastey stuff goes on!
It's incredible that people think that kids can't be taught how to work cleanly...My kids know that you don't lick anything when you're working with food, and they seem to do fine. My mother was making gingerbread houses with them once, and she was telling them that they could eat the candy while they were working on the houses. Of course, there I am, mean mom saying "no, don't eat anything while you're working" and she replied "oh, but they can't help it." I told her yes they can, they do all the time unless someone's sitting there encouraging them to do it!
And for anyone who thinks I'm too mean for making them wait to eat anything, they're definitely not sugar-deprived! They eat Puh-Lenty of candy, believe me! 
They just know that you shouldn't put your hands up around your mouth while you're working with food.
I was teaching a cake decorating class to a bunch of 9-yr-old girls once, and the first class all they wanted to do was suck the icing out of the bags. I spent the whole time freaking out about sanitation, but they wouldn't listen to me, and they insisted that they COULDN'T HELP THEMSELVES!!! For the next week's class, I mixed an entire container of salt into the practice icing, then told them to go ahead and try it. Amazingly, none of them licked anything that day! 
I pointed out to them at the end of the class that they had done really well with not licking anything, and that it proved that they definitely COULD help themselves if they wanted to!
I had to post this in here for the Chinese stories! gotta see it-turn your speakers up and enjoy 
http://upchucky.com/flash-chinese.html
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