Food and Restaurant Secrets

In the light of reading Anthony Bourdain’s “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” I developed a morbid curiosity  in the goings-on of the restaurant trade that we do not often hear about as patrons. It did not take much digging to find interesting examples online. 

I found an article on Slashfood.com (which has since changed its home to HuffPost Food) titled "10 Dirty Little Restaurant Secrets." The entries are a mix between "secrets" specific to certain restaurants and ones that are more general. Most of them are ways that restaurants go about duping customers. The first entry is: At one high-class Asian restaurant the owner, looking to save a few bucks, marketed thinly sliced fried, salted, and sugared cabbage as edible seaweed.

A seaweed salad

Cabbage - would you be convinced?

Honestly, I think I would have been one of the convinced customers (the preparation makes it sound like the resemblance would be greater). It would be fairly simple for a skilled person to force the resemblance. This is proof that people will have more faith in quality of expensive restaurant cuisine - something I will try to have a bit less of from now on!

On another site was an article "Restaurant Secrets." This article takes more time to look behind the scenes, and I considered it to be far less negative than the "Dirty Little Secrets" (although this could have been interpreted from the titles alone!). There were some neat facts included like:

• Some chefs don't attend culinary school, and that does not make them better or worse than those that do.
• You might be able to tell the cleanliness of the kitchen by the cleanliness of the bathroom! (Let me consider the restaurants I frequent...)
• Frozen food is used somewhat frequently - it doesn't cause detriment, but it's not likely all of your food is super fresh.

Before now I have shied away from topics like this. The phrase "ignorance is bliss" comes to mind, but maybe it is worth thinking about. For me it serves as motivation to get cooking! Although I do not know how to yet, only cooking for myself can really guarantee how it's prepared and what goes into it!

"10 Dirty Little Restaurant Secrets" : http://www.slashfood.com/2009/09/21/10-dirty-little-restaurant-secrets/ & "Restaurant Secrets": http://www.womansday.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-shortcuts/restaurant-secrets