food fights

I’ve had a sandwich thrown at me.  Fortunately it was an egg salad sandwich, so when it struck,  only my dignity was bruised.   But that’s the food business for you.  It’s unpredictlable,  Hungry people have agendas and flashpoint tempers.  

The thrower was a female customer who, having run out of patience waiting in line to pay for her lunch, decided to hurl it at me instead. 

This happened years ago when I had a gourmet food shop.  I was working the counter and had been trapped in a conversation at the check out.  The queue had started to grow.   Dressed in jeans and looking like any other chit of a deli girl, I didn’t have OWNER pulsating obviously in neon lights over my head.  But then maybe that wouldn’t have mattered. 

I’ve been summoned with a “Hey, Miss”, at posh parties I’ve caterer only to be unceremoniously handed a dozen shrimp tails and then expected to wait around whilst the same guest finished gnawing on a chicken wing  to then gift me the bone. 

People have walked into my restaurant and demanded a table.  The fact that every table in the house was filled and all the bar stools taken too, never seemed to faze them.  They just expected me to make one appear.  They’re not amused when I tell them it’s the food, not the magic business that I’m in.  

But after 30 years of being a caterer I’ve found lots of people have expected me to produce things out of thin air.  Like chairs, when more people show up, another six tier wedding cake when the one they have keels over,  or ice when they didn’t order enough.   And I’ve been asked countless times to do something about the weather.  It’s all very challenging. 

Then there’s something about being a waiter that says “dogsbody”.   Like those signs  pinned on your back that say ‘kick me’.   Hated by the kitchen workers, often treated with indifference by the customers, it’s a wretched way to make a buck.  I’ve had a client refer to my staff as “scullery maids” and suggest we all be frisked before leaving her party in case someone pinched a teaspoon or such from the family silver service. 

Then there are those who consider food service workers as a totally invisible species.  The worst are on-call doctors at parties.  Looking for a quiet and private space to return an emergency page, they invariably wind up in the kitchen.    Oblivious that the space is in actuality filled with busy workers feverishly replenishing platters, making sandwiches, elbow deep in chicken salad, arranging garnishes and slicing tenderloin, they proceed to discuss body parts, bodily functions, what’s been discharged and from which orifice, bowel movements, blood, bile, phlegm, and green and yellow stuff.   Patient privacy isn’t an issue in a kitchen. 

So, I’ve decided that in future instead of military service there should be compulsory national food service.  Everyone has to do an obligatory six months at the very least.  No pulling rank and no conscientious objectors.  On what grounds anyway?  Everyone eats.  Woosies and vegans would have to wash dishes.   It would be very humbling and humanizing.  Instead of polishing guns and boots all day, they could polish silverware.  So much more practical in the long run.