On the Issue of Cleanliness

Being away from home and familiarity can be a good thing. For me, it’s been positively challenging on myriad levels. I observe a different way of living and working on a daily basis and think about how I might want to mentally and physically change my approach to both when I return home. For instance, in the case of how conservative those around me seem to be when it comes to resources and consumption, I hope I can be just as such come April back in Brooklyn. When it comes to the issue of cleanliness in our kitchen, however, I’m not sure if I am incredibly uptight and slightly OCD as an individual or perhaps as an American, or if I have the right to be somewhat horrified.

Just as service started this afternoon, Malaga (a kid from Malaga, Spain—shocking), hopped into the center of the kitchen and plopped himself down at the central table. One of the four head chefs pulled out a sewing kit and a bottle of alcohol and iodine. After donning a pair of latex gloves, he had Malaga put his leg up on top of his knee and began to puncture (with a needle from the sewing kit) what looked like a boil on Malaga’s leg. Immediately, blood started to spurt out everywhere--the head chef even joked about how the blood might reach his eye. Realizing that he didn’t have anything to absorb and wipe up the blood, he shouted for plate wipes (small square cocktail napkins) and began dabbing away. He never took off his apron nor his chef’s coat and put bloody napkin after bloody napkin on the table.

What amazed me beyond this unhygienic and stomach-turning scene was that our executive chef had cooked a small plate of kokotxas and opened a few bottles of wine for one of his good amigos who happened to have stopped by. They didn’t flinch nor seem to notice what was taking place.

While this might seem like an isolated incident, there are daily practices that stun me. Perhaps New York City has an incredibly strict health code, which I now have an unending amount of respect and admiration for, or perhaps culturally, Americans are too preoccupied with dirt and germs, but here are some things that really, really, bother me in no apparent order—

There are no hand-washing stations and the act itself is not enforced. We are lucky if there is a bottle of dish detergent soap on the sink for us to use after going to the bathroom. The same sponges, mops, rags, buckets and brooms used to clean the toilets and showers are used to clean the cooking equipment that stays within our stations (that does not get sent to the dishwasher). The mops, brooms and buckets are stored outside in a huge dumpster where they are never able to dry (especially considering how much it rains here). We’ve served four-day old lobster. We’ve never thrown out the panko that we use to bread the raw oyster—with egg whites. In fact, it is my job to add more panko to the vessel when it is getting low. We use thick, blue, paper towel-like cloths to cover our mis-en-place—things like lettuces and chives that we don’t want to dry out. Those cloths are used minimally for one-week until they smell and then we are permitted to throw them out. Each station has a special, incredibly soft, blue towel used to wipe the plates that gets rinsed after every service, but then folded and put back in the refrigerator—again, not able to dry. We do the same with cheesecloth. Produce is stored on the floor of our walk-in (no the bottom shelf, I’m talking straight floor) with the lobsters. The water bottles that we drink out of that the restaurant provides to us are saved (not washed) and re-used to store and freeze stock. I guess that’s not terrible if the stock is then boiled at some point. I may or may not have seen individuals rounding up all of the half-empty water bottles, consolidating them, and then storing them in the large walk-in. After witnessing this—I have made sure that every bottle of water I take is sealed.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in the case of kitchen cleanliness, I don’t think my “American-ness” or inherent OCD is repulsed and turned off by these practices, it’s just my common sense. Where is Spain’s health department?? (Although I am not applying this to the country at large!)