That Touch of Yuck

Do you get a feeling of comfort when you see food handlers wearing gloves, protected from the germs that can get into foodstuffs from dirty fingers? Well, don't.

Several months back I was at a well-known grocery chain in front of the seafood & meat department. A young Ukrainian fellow was working the counter and, I was happy to see, wearing protective (?) gloves. An elderly gentleman was being served. Firstly, he wanted a pound or so of raw chicken nuggets, all slimy and rubbery looking, jiggling in the gloved hand as the Ukrainian dug into the gooey mess to grab fistfuls of the raw flesh to load into the baggie.

"Will there by anything else?" he asked the customer. Yep, the elderly gentleman certainly did want something else. "I'll take a pound of that peeled, tail-on, cooked shrimp over there."

Our Ukrainian is wearing those gloves, the same gloves he wore when digging into the raw salmonella-hazard mess of jiggling chicken pieces. He proceeded to dig into the cooked shrimp and pile them into a baggie for his customer. The customer was talking with fellow patrons about the delicious shrimp cocktail he was about to have that day and how easy it was to just pour some ready-made sauce into the bowl and place the already prepared shrimp on the platter and ENJOY! He was oblivious to what was happening with the handling of his shrimp and the potential trip to the emergency room he was about to encounter. I wonder if he survived. But, at least the server was wearing gloves!

More recently I went to a fancy chocolatier's that was relatively new in the area. I'd read about how yummy the confections were and, in particular, the kulfi was a must taste. My mother's birthday is around the corner and she simply adores chocolates. I used to buy her the most wonderful chocolates in Atlanta at a place called Maison Robert's. He was from France and his candies were divine, made on the premises and he demanded that his chocolates never, ever be refrigerated because it would damange the delicate goods. I asked my daughter if she would like me to treat her to a kulfi so we could check out the goods in the shop. The young girl at the counter was wearing gloves as she packed the cute, little boxes full of delightful morsels of hand-made, on the premises, chocolates. She offered samples of anything we were interested in. We declined samples but ordered a couple of kulfis. It took a while for her to dig them out of the back of a freezer in the back of the store. She proceeded to unwrap them for us (I don't know why, really) and she offered a half-apology for the appearance of one of the treats. Seems they melted on the truck from California and refroze. One of them had refrozen with the stick smack dab in the middle so one couldn't hold it to eat it. I suggested perhaps they should be discounted since they were in pretty bad shape and her reply was, "I can't do that because they are still edible." Huh? You mean, if they weren't edible they would be eligible for discounting? Would anyone want to buy them at any price if they weren't edible? I was glad to see she was still wearing her gloves. To help us out she pulled the bottom half of the treat off and tossed it in the trash can to reveal a piece of the stick to hold on to. I tried to stop her from throwing half of the treat away (these things cost $3.50/each and they are small to start with) to no avail. She was intent on being helpful. She handed us the treats with extra gloves for us to don and a pile of napkins. I might add here that none of the above helped, we were still covered down to the elbow with the sugary, sticky, melted mess. After freeing her hands from the kulfis she scratched her nose and took our money and put it in the cash drawer. As we left the store she went back to packing chocolates in the boxes. She was wearing the same gloves. I don't know but maybe money is safer than raw chicken.

I've since determined those gloves aren't for OUR protection. They wear those gloves to keep their hands from getting all yuck. That, to me, is really uncool beans.