Secrets of the Grocery Store

            Let me just say, I was so happy to come across dear old Tony in this set of readings.  I found myself becoming increasingly depressed as I read through tales of overwhelming gluttony at the beefsteak, loss of a friend, and then the disappearance of innovation in French cuisine.  Although these were very interesting pieces, I despaired about what I would do when it came time to write my blog.  Needless to say, it was nice to come across Do Not Eat Before Reading This. 

            Working in any type of service industry, you get to know the deep dark secrets of how the business runs.  For me, I found Bourdain’s expose on kitchen life to be very relatable to my years long experience at a grocery store.  Although the store I worked at was not a chain, there was still a lot of money saving tricks that we used that our customers probably didn’t even think about.  Not to mention that the workers had very different personalities then the ones they portrayed on the outside.

            We had nicknames for some of our favorite and least favorite customers, and sometimes we even went out of our way to avoid some of them.  “Dog lady” would always come in wanting a carryout for her groceries, even though she was quite able-bodied, so the stockers would immediately go on break whenever she arrived.  My managers would let me take a break whenever an elderly man, who had taken a creepy liking to me, would make his daily shopping trip.  That was mean, but not as mean as some of my fellow cashiers bagging eggs under cans for the customers who were really rude to them.  This seemed to go along well with Bourdain’s disdain for the “well-done” people.

            Customers also didn’t know that when they brought a bruised or moldy piece of fruit to our attention the bad spots were just cut out and it was thrown into a fruit salad.  The same customer would probably end up buying it the next day.  They also probably wouldn’t have liked that we used flour and sugar bags that were about to expire in our bakery to make their donuts and cakes.  Then there was the hot food area where the workers were instructed to tell customers that the chicken was fresh out of the fryer, even when it was a few hours old.  Most of them never knew the difference, so I guess it didn’t hurt.

            Honestly, when Bourdain talks about all of the ungloved hands and the reused bread, it doesn’t bother me.  These are practices that reduce waste, and that’s a good thing in my opinion.  In a business, especially a small one, you can’t afford to be completely septic or you would go broke.  I would be happy to know that if I didn’t finish my breadsticks at Olive Garden that they would reheat them and present them as fresh to another table.  Maybe then I wouldn’t feel guilty about being wasteful and take them home to eat as a late night snack.