I used the bottom of my coat to open the door. We were seated right away and presented menus in a lovely, stiff binder. I didn't take the menu, forcing the hostess to lay it on the table — I prefer wipeable plastic. I opened it with my knuckles and avoided touching the grease-stained pages inside. Before the coffee came, I surveyed the condiment pile, first checking the sugar packets for stains and age. All clear. Uh oh: I spied a communal jam pot, which meant no toast for me, and the top of the ketchup bottle had a ring of crust as thick as a shoelace: I'd eat plain hash browns. I counted a dozen more infractions as I stirred my coffee, including the giant crack in my mug. I'd just have to order my bloody mary with extra lime to rub around the glass rim, not trust anything with beans, and skip cream in my new cup of coffee.
If I didn't tell you that I'm my own private health inspector, you'd probably never notice. I try not to let it affect my or my companions' meals. I stay, I eat, I tip. I'm not a germaphobe, and I don't have O.C.D. I don't think I'm going to die or get cooties from touching a gently used fork. Geez, I'm not a loon. I just don't like being sick, nor do I enjoy diarrhea very much; do you? Mostly, I don't like touching things other people have touched after they've already touched dirtier, nastier things. It's the transitive property of gross.
When you touch salt and pepper shakers or those fancy velum menus at your favorite restaurant, you pick up residue of what those prior hands before you have touched. A door handle? A parking meter? A dirty face-up penny on the sidewalk? Nice! Refrigerated, thawed, and re-refrigerated butter that's been handled by unwashed hands is my favorite loose canon of bacteria. That jam pot I mentioned creates a bacteria grotto, and there's no way of knowing who touched what part of it and what got inside.
Foodborne bacteria need moisture, warmth, and nutrients to grow. Ripe environments, like an improperly wiped table with sugary residue from someone's sidecar or, riper still, our very own cellphones, provide a breeding ground for bacteria. So many shades of sick exist between full-blown food poisoning and the"indigestion" that we often suffer a food-borne illness or restaurant-contracted tummy coaster and shirk it off as the 24-hour flu. Whether campylobacter or clostridium, mild food poisoning can masquerade as simple diarrhea with abdominal cramps for a short period of time. While everyone likes to blame the mussels, we sicken ourselves far more frequently than anyone in a chef's coat.
My state, Washington, like many, requires certification of food service employees, which involves passing a lengthy, multiple-choice food-handling exam. Every third question deals with The Danger Zone, that temperature range within which hot and cold foods list towards lukewarm, allowing bacteria like coliform and salmonella to breed wildly. Everyone always blames the last piece of shellfish or medium rare hamburger when they're on flush number seven because mom and myth were so successful at scaring us about undercooked animal flesh. Statistically, though, improperly stored beans and rice and other high-starch foods should make the top of your suspect list. Even higher, your server is responsible for your clean eating environment and whether your menu, table, and salt and pepper shakers were properly wiped with a rag soaked in a proper sanitizer. Always excuse a whiff of bleach at the table; it bodes well, not ill.
But you are the real tipping point in the restaurant war on germs. Customer-on-customer bacteria action taints the theoretically clean environment provided. Forget things inside shells — your face holes are the clear points of contagion, especially your eyes. People subconsciously touch and rub their eyes like crazy. As a bartender who touched filthy, stinking money all night long, I'd watch people eat with their hands, then shake hands, then lick fingers, then reach in their wallet and hand me paper money. See, the sheer amount of traffic in the front of the restaurant creates the right amount of absent-minded contact to spread germs, with hands touching food, touching the floor, touching me, touching you.
Don't trust people not to be slovenly, and ensure the least amount of handling of things that are going to go into your mouth. Please hear me when I say that those gel alcohol sanitizers do not replace good old-fashioned soap and hot water. Freaked out by my finger pointing? Then keep in mind that the 214th grossest thing I've ever seen would make you curl up in the fetal position and forsake ever leaving the house again. I wish all restaurants were forced to wear their health inspection scores like scarlet letters as is mandatory in Los Angeles, but mostly I wish customers washed their hands. Lest you think I'm picking on the pros, don’t even get me started about your kitchen and its Alexander Fleming cringe-worthy sponge. And if I see you putting your diapered rugrat's ass on the counter at my café, look out.
Maggie Savarino Dutton is an industry veteran who has played bartender, sommelier and line cook and who now consults. She writes "Search & Distill," which appears every Wednesday in the Seattle Weekly, and maintains The Wine Offensive, a blog about wine, food, and anything else that might be discussed over the bar.
Restaurant table condiments photograph by Sifu Renka via Flickr (Creative Commons), “Menu” photograph from Image Source/Getty Images, "Plate" photograph from FoodCollection/Getty Images.
