Thread: Food Hygene

Do Thai caterers actually know anything about food hygene at all.
Yesterday whilst in MACRO on Samui i watched two men and a woman, frantically 'hooking' through the Pork Bin with their bare hands, throwing joints aside, at the same time scratching themselves. They eventually found a piece that they might have liked, although all the joints looked the same. Then after all three had spent a few seconds each sniffing it in turn, they threw it back and started searching for another. This put me right off. I blame the management of Samui MACRO for allowing this to happen. Same was happening with the prawns being picked over with bare hands, which incidentially were wiped on trousers.
Why do Thais just have to handle meat in this way, they do it with the chicken also even though it is mostly all the same, it seems to be a dirty habit to me !

And they pick their noses every minutes and they wipe their arses with their fingers and they absolutely refuse to waste money on anything as frivolous as soap, don't bare thinking about do it., still at least it gives your immune system a work out

You have two choices. Get used to it and work around it or leave.

Snivelling about it continually will make not one jot of difference, although some seasoned farang seem to think it will.

Don't worry if you manage to avoid the food poisoning attempts they will get you with the insecticides when the fumigate your room.

I'm sure the British was just a grubby fingered before we started to care for our customers in the last 20 or so years. Meat in handled this way not just in Thailand but other close neighboring countries. Any germs will just get nuked. We know that. What you cant see, wont hurt you. So don't observe while they are preparing.

I used to be friends with a Chinese family back in England. Lived here about 20 odd years. But round back, where they were preparing food, frozen chicken being cut up, you would of thought this was a grubby Chinese food market in Asia. Soggy blood wet cardboard get mashed up with the chicken as it was being carved. Disgusted yes. Nice food [if you like western Chinese food]

So forget about it. Eat at home if you dont like it.

I eat stall food fairly often, don't think it's ever made my arse fall off. The beer / ice on the other hand...

Just don't look at them cook.

Ignorance is bliss.

Although I'm guilty of making similar observations in the past..


I just made the fundamental error of watching my lunch being prepared in a small, dank, horrendously unkempt but at the same time, very popular with the local farmers, Issan cookery emporium..

This elementary mistake..(newbie error, really..textbook school boy fuck up) will not be repeated in the remainder of my stay here, simply because I don't want to starve to death.

I implore you, the reader of this non-ficticious observation, to do the same. Never ever monitor the progress of your pending repast, it's almost an irredeemable source of trauma..infact, as I type, I'm involuntarily convulsing and gagging simultaneously.

First up was the pad krapow nor mai, sai kai dao MAI SOOK (fried bamboo with pork, basil and a runny fried egg).

All ingredients were handled with unwashed hands, plonked unlovingly into a wok which had just been the focal point of rotten fish supper the same oil and same utensils being used. The top of several sauce bottles were then fucking BITTEN off by the culinary master preparing my grub, spat out, then bottles up turned and violently shaken until an unmeasured flow graced the frying pan.

My egg, which was specifically ordered to be presented to me looking like an egg and not the charred remains of a chicken's arsehole, was subsequently butchered in a frying pan full of black oil and placed with HANDS on top of my bamboo and pork..fucking hell, Gordon Ramsey would wanking over this shit.

Then came the som tum...surely you can't burn this or fuck this up..all was going swimmingly until I realized she was using the same mortar to prepare normal som tum and the horrible rotten crabs and fish..so my salad would no doubt taste the same.
Then to top things off quite beautifully, the chef took a wanking great gob full of my salad with the spoon she was mixing it with and carried on with the task at hand using the same fucking spoon.

I feel ill..

McDonalds might be a safer bet in future..

The worst case of food poisoning i ever had in Thailand was courtesy of MK Restaurants.

We stopped buying meat from Makro because of all the monkeys manhandling the goods.

Surely if its cooked properly it'll be OK

unsafe storage [refridgeration] and cross contamination are the worse or best i suppose chances of makeing you crook

Originally Posted by Happy Dave

Do Thai caterers actually know anything about food hygene at all.

In a word, no.

Next question.

Originally Posted by WujouMao

What you cant see, wont hurt you..

Bang goes the whole field of microbial pathology then....

Originally Posted by Happy Dave

i watched two men and a woman, frantically 'hooking' through the Pork Bin with their bare hands, throwing joints aside, at the same time scratching themselves.

And that's only what you saw during a short period of time.

The traditional Thai alternative, a strong case for the local village market (if you know the stall operators and can trust them), is worth considering..............
Slaughtered at 1.00am, butchered by 5.00 am, buy it prior 12 midday before:
the seller gets too tired of swatting off the flies with an inflated plastic bag on a stick
the stench of the market gets too much
yesterdays left overs are offered to unknowing customers (kept in those large orange or blue ice chests behind the counter)

Then refrigerate it, cook it and eat it that day.

At least this method of procurement minimizes time temperature abuse (the multiplication of bacteria factor) and the meat being contaminated by unhygenic handling by who knows who (and how long) a la: Macro, Big C and Lotus merchandising practices.

Once you develop the ubiquitous 'Asian stomach', you rarely get badly poisoned by this sort of thing. The meat doesn't hang around long enough before being sold to develop really bad germies, besides e. coli (which is there to begin with actually). It is food that is kept longer that can really knock you over- hence the 'MK' saga above. It's all very well to freeze stuff, but if the meat has become infected before freezing, the bacteria just lies dormant until the meat is defrosted. Notable exception, shellfish, which I am basically reluctant to buy anywhere here. The only severe food poisoning I've had was from quite a pricey seafood restaurant in Sydney, probably the oysters.

Originally Posted by WujouMao

I'm sure the British was just a grubby fingered before we started to care for our customers in the last 20 or so years.

Old Ma Actons Tuck Shop.

Located in Middle England, old Ma Actons was a legendary purveyor of loose sweets to kids of the local school. Constantly afflicted by a cold, Ma Acton used to sneeze her way through endless days, each sneeze accompanied by a wipe of the hand under the hairy armpit which had the tip of a large bubo extruding through the matted hair.

Although i was sick a fair bit at the time, i do believe my immune system was well developed by eating loose sweets and cream cakes from old Ma Actons.

Originally Posted by nidhogg

Originally Posted by WujouMao

What you cant see, wont hurt you..

Bang goes the whole field of microbial pathology then....

fucking hell! that there is a home run, sir.




Iiiiiiiiit's outta there.

And the ferang pick at it with their sterilized mitts? You eat rubbish expect pickers to show up.

ive just got over a 2 day bout of the shats,got a very strong stomach from eating all kinds of grub, out of date yoghurts, street food most days etc, what i pinned it down to ? a fockin subway i was dying to have! Cnuts!!!

^fucking typical. I'm starving now thinking about Sub Way.

thanks.

wewcum mate, while im at it who eats the raw prawns, aka, goong che nam plaa? And the raw issanistan beef in manao juice dish?

I'm not a fan of the sea food generally so raw sea food would be a big no.

I've eaten Larb Neuar which was made from raw beef. Quite nice wouldn't go mad for it. Never come across the one you mentioned.

Somebody on that forum used to post and post and post about activated charcoal pills, which are supposed to fight the Bangkok Belly pretty well.
So I tried it.
It worked.
While I used to have the running shits all day / everyday, 10 minutes after any meal, it's now just as the doctor described it.
Only difference:
I gained 7 kilos in 6 month since.

So a nice bout of food poisoning could become the new "hot" spa treatment.
A unique Thai experience. - Advertised as such many farangs would shell out handsomely for it.