Yes, Mr. Keller, your customers trust you.
But is that any wonder? You, Mr. Keller, are in the minority when it comes to responsible Chefs. You've worked in kitchens for most of your life. You've washed dishes, peeled potatoes, strained stock. You taste everything. You do not compromise your standards. You acknowledge with respect every detail as important.
And those who work for and with you are expected to accept and adopt those standards. Chefs in your kitchens greet each other with a hand shake. Pots are scrubbed by hand until they shine. The low-boys are immaculate. Food containers are neatly labeled with sharp black marker in legible writing on tape that is neatly cut with scissors (not torn).
And your food is consistently delicious, as documented by numerous food critics, bloggers, and my own taste buds. Even though the frites at your Bistro in Yountville are delivered to the kitchen door as frozen sticks of potato in a box from Sysco, I know that you and the chefs who work for you respect the food that is served in all of your restaurants at every stage. As one of your customers, I trust that those frites will be handled, stored, cooked, plated and served with due respect. And mayonnaise. A good frite deserves some good mayonnaise.
I trust that the food you serve is safe in part because I have been in a few of your kitchens and know many people who work for you. Carelessness with food safety and cleanliness in your kitchens is simply not tolerated.
But I've been in and worked in many other restaurant kitchens and know that your standard is not the industry standard. Not by a long shot. I have turned down jobs in restaurant kitchens where I have seen roaches in the dry storage, mold in the walk-ins, and no paper towels in the employee bathrooms. Have you ever seen a cook walk into the bathroom with his apron still on, come out wiping his hands on it, and return to his station? I have. Many times. But never in a Thomas Keller restaurant.
With the industrialization of the food industry and pervasiveness of processed foods throughout the United States (and most of the World), have we been lulled into a false sense of safety with regard to our food supply? If it comes in a shiny wrapper with a tamper proof seal it must be safe to eat, right? Perhaps it's time to reread The Jungle.
But the responsibility for food safety lies not only with government agencies and departments of health. I dream of a day when private citizens, faced with a food safety issue, will take the reigns of responsibility to find a solution and share it with others.
I don't think it's an unreasonable dream. When I was working in New York in 2005, the NYC Health Department began cracking down on restaurants using sous vide as a method of storing and cooking food because there was no official protocol for that method established by any health department in the country. One restaurant group stepped up to write a HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) Plan for sous vide, and shared it with other restaurants. Thanks again, Mr. Keller.
I wonder if some will take Mr. Keller's quote as a dismissal of the importance of the matter at hand: "there's always something new to worry about in food safety." It may seem so, especially when serious food borne illnesses such as salmonella have taken center stage multiple times in recent years, with mass media sensationalizing the "outbreak" to maximize ratings. It is symptomatic of greater issues in the current state of food in our country: the regulation and enforcement of food safety standards, agriculture subsidies, the farm lobby, food labeling, etc. Coupled with the ignorance and complacency of the American public with regard to the food we eat, and the vague ethics of food manufacturers who make decisions based on profit margins and cost benefit analysis, we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
Nicholas D. Kristof offers a thoughtful opinion in a column posted to the New York Times in December 2008. He proposes a bold overhaul of the USDA, and presents a reasonable argument for a rethinking and restructuring of this antiquated government agency if it is to be pertinent and effective in the 21st century. Certainly an opinion worth discussing.
So, for now, caveat emptor--restaurateur and customer alike. Not all that's packaged is safe. One day we may realize a new meaning for the "Freedom from Want" and "Freedom from Fear" as articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. One day we may be able to trust with confidence that all the many food choices made available to us in this country are truly safe. But to get there we must accept that you and I have an ethical responsibility to know where the food we eat comes from, and to hold both our government and the food industry responsible for what is offered to us.
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