FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A colleague of mine has been demanding a cake from me for quite some time.  The reason behind his demand is not so interesting and so I am not discussing it. Bored with his demand, I decided to buy a few pastries for him.  Last week, on a fine morning, I went to a bakery in our neighbourhood.  Most of the shops were still closed.  The counter at the bakery too was not open.  There were two teenagers in the bakery, who were busy attending to the chores.  While one was sweeping, another was cooking something in a large vessel. 

Out of curiosity and nothing else to do, waiting for the counter to open, I observed what was being cooked.  I wondered, what can be cooked in a bakery!  I thought everything is baked there.   A large aluminium vessel, which probably was never washed, was placed on an indigenously designed gas stove in front of the bakery, on the road.  The vessel too, was not covered with any lid.  The water in the vessel was very dirty.  Dirty is not the appropriate word.  It was muddy.  Potatoes and carrots were being boiled in that vessel. (Probably, the root vegetables were not washed)  I also saw a thick polythene bag inside the vessel that floated partially in the boiling water and I told the boy sweeping the floor, assuming that it was dropped into the vessel along with the vegetables, inadvertently.  While he maintained silence, another boy who brought a tray of eggs and dropped one after the other into the boiling water replied that, he had dropped a sealed cover containing peas into the water.  The eggs were not white and bright like the ones I have seen in the provision stores or the supermarkets, but were off-white and dirty.  Some eggs were stained. I just could not digest the scene and it troubled me a lot. (It continues to haunt me).

I discussed it with some of my colleagues at office and a lady, who lived near a bakery in her childhood, told me that, they boil eggs for making puffs (egg puffs).  But why potatoes, peas and carrots was my question?  She replied; they are for the veg-puffs.  “OMG” was my reaction.  “Is this the way they boil vegetables for veg-puff?”  Another colleague asked me; “can you guess how oil is replenished in roadside eateries?”  Even before I attempted to answer, she said, “oil sachets are just dropped in to the wok and after a while, when the plastic cover melts and the oil spills into the wok, the plastic cover is removed”.  Why on earth should they do such things?  Is cutting a sachet and pouring oil such a difficult task? I discussed the same topic with several people that day.  My brother, who had worked with a firm manufacturing poultry feed and had visited several poultries during his tenure told me that, the dirt on the eggs I had seen that morning could be bird droppings.  Yuck.

I am not satisfied discussing this with just my family and colleagues.  I want as many people as possible to know how unhygienic the bakeries and roadside eateries are.  Kindly share this information with as many people as possible.