The Best of Behind Closed Ovens
November 25, 2015 7:57 AM   Subscribe

With the changes in formats occurring at Gawker Media, several of the niche sub-sites are being shuttered. One of the more notable is Jezebel's Kitchenette, which had focused on the trials and tribulations of the food service industry, at all tiers. The highlight of Kitchenette was the regular Behind Closed Ovens column, in which site runner C.A. Pinkham would publish stories of the weird, rage-inducing, and just outright insane world of food service. As a final hurrah, Pinkham has published a list of the best 30 BCO stories from the year, some of which may make you rethink about eating out.

Thankfully, Behind Closed Ovens is not dead, as Wonkette has picked the series up, assuring a future full of food service stories.
posted by NoxAeternum (75 comments total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was a Monday highlight. I'm pleased that it has been picked up by Wonkette.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:37 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


GREAT POST. I love BCO and I'm so happy it's found a home.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:37 AM on November 25, 2015


Pinkham really enjoyed the stories wherein a server did something to try to harm a customer. It was always fun to call Pinkham out on the hate.
posted by Docrailgun at 8:40 AM on November 25, 2015


I desperately want to know what kind of fish is "real fish." Maybe net crabs.

Also the guy with the 365 Starbucks cards is definitely a Redditor. I know exactly how the other side of that story reads and it's making me itch.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:40 AM on November 25, 2015 [10 favorites]


My usual response to reading Behind Closed Ovens is thinking we should do away with private restaurants as they don't seem to be worth the trouble or confusion they create.
posted by The Whelk at 8:46 AM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Why on earth would I order a completely flavourless ice-cream?
posted by shakespeherian at 8:46 AM on November 25, 2015 [5 favorites]


One good thing about working with your mom is that she will brain Psycho Santa for scaring you.
posted by emjaybee at 9:06 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Most of these stories inspire despair along with the hilarity. I'm so glad they included Trucker Santa so that I could retain an iota of my faith in humanity. (Seriously, Trucker Santa is the best ever.)
posted by Daily Alice at 9:06 AM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah it's like two parts ha-ha one part "why are people like this is it because mental health care is so terrible in this country?"
posted by The Whelk at 9:11 AM on November 25, 2015 [13 favorites]


I'm incredibly amazed that so many of these horrible customer stories end up with the customer you're not being kowtowed to and given exactly what they want. My experience in the restaurant industry tells me that horrible people are usually rewarded for being horrible.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:37 AM on November 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


My experience in the restaurant industry tells me that horrible people are usually rewarded for being horrible.

I bet that the employees in those scenarios don't bother sending the stories in, or that BCO gets so fucking many of them that they don't bother printing them.
posted by Etrigan at 9:45 AM on November 25, 2015


You guys need to go to the first link too. Illuminati kale!
posted by corb at 9:49 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Aw, dang. BCO was my go-to when I was having a bad day at work, because at least I don't work in a restaurant.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:57 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


(I completely missed it was moving to Wonkette. Huzzah!)
posted by Lyn Never at 9:57 AM on November 25, 2015


No, we’re an alligator and party hat place, and today we’re giving away KAZOOOOOS!

Oh god, this just totally broke me!
posted by dnash at 9:58 AM on November 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


Anthony Bourdain has also mined this vein a fair amount.

I don't have too many horror stories from my kitchen days. It was mostly the after-hours partying where the drama unfolded.
posted by clvrmnky at 10:23 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Why on earth would I order a completely flavourless ice-cream?

It's called Sweet Cream flavor, you can sometimes find it in small independent ice cream parlors, and it's delicious.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:30 AM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's also the base ice cream at Cold Stone, where it's disgusting.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:39 AM on November 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


I was glad to find out that BCO was going to survive whatever mess they've got going on over there. Everyone who has worked a job where "Customer Service" is a thing probably has at least one interesting story, but eateries seem to bring out the worst in a lot of people.

I miss the early days when Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream was made with Sweet Cream instead of vanilla.
posted by monopas at 10:44 AM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I had completely forgotten about the CARAMEL GOLEM. I was haunted by that story for a couple of weeks after I first read it.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:46 AM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


"It's not free if you give it to meeee!"
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 10:48 AM on November 25, 2015 [5 favorites]


I confess I have a hard time believing the one where the server pours a jug of sangria over a horrible customer. I mean, I want it to be true, but it seems to wish fulfillment fantasy to actually be true.
posted by dnash at 11:03 AM on November 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


No, we’re an alligator and party hat place, and today we’re giving away KAZOOOOOS!

I've been this fed up at a job before.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:07 AM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wonder if she only put those in because otherwise she couldn't have claimed to have "written" any part of the feature?

C.A. Pinkham identifies as male.
posted by palomar at 11:33 AM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Not so much a service horror story as a strange and funny one, but:

Years ago I worked at a cafe where most of the staff was either high school or university aged, with one really old French guy - the kind of guy just stuffed with interesting stories - was an amateur boxer in Europe, then worked as a sailor all over the world, somehow wound up in this little cafe in Vancouver. Anyhow, he and a friend had a catering business on the side, and one Saturday afternoon he told me his usual busser was sick, would I be interested in making some money that night? Sure, I said. So he gave me this little pep talk about how this was gonna be the kind of fancy party where you always give the clients whatever they ask for, blah blah, then gives me this address out in West Vancouver (think big big mansions). I borrow a suit from my roommate, take the bus out there that night, and yeah, probably the biggest house I've ever been in. Big money crowd.

I meet his partner, a really nice middle-aged lady, we get to work. They're tending bar, I'm doing a mix of bottle/glass sweeps and wandering around with appetizer trays. About an hour in, I get back to the bar and it's just the lady now, she's totally swamped and waves at me for help. So cool, now I'm tending bar, and I'm racking up tips - pretty much all $10s and $20s, a couple $50s.

Maybe another hour goes by, my French co-worker returns with his hair all messed up. I load up an app tray, return to the living room .... where there's a full-on orgy going on. OK, guess nobody's eating. After that this old very drunk guy who'd been glued to the bar while I was bartending sees I'm out and insists that I start drinking with him, which is what I spend the rest of the night doing.

Finally at the end of the night, 3 or 4am, we're packing their equipment into the lady's car, I'm most definitely not sober, and I see my co-worker in a classic world weary French pose, collar loosened, sitting on the steps smoking, so I ask him where he went in the middle of service. "I was in ze fucking orgy! I told you - this type event, you do whatever they want!!" Good night though, made over $500.
posted by mannequito at 12:34 PM on November 25, 2015 [21 favorites]


For me, one of the most valuable parts of BCO was “Pinkham’s Law:”

The idea that no matter how stupid, how wrong, how idiotic, a customer (it’s usually the customer) was, someone will show up in the comments to defend them.

Pinkham's Law almost always played out the same way:

Story:
1) A customer doesn't know what is usually regarded as a basic food fact.
2) Protagonist Server is internally shocked, but politely tries to explain the basic food fact.
3) Customer is condescending/abusive/aggressive to the server and refuses to listen to the explanation, insists that the server is wrong, or expects the server to read their mind or divine what they really mean.

Comments:
1) Commenters talk about how horrible the customer was.
2) Righteous commenter shows up to defend the customer, totally ignoring the customer's belligerent behavior in favor of insisting that it's unfair to assume that everyone has basic food knowledge (which may be true, but sidelines the fact that the server tried to explain).

The most memorable example:
A story about a guy who ordered eggs, and got very upset when the server tried to ask how he wanted them cooked. The server asked if he wanted them poached, sunny side up, etc. and the guy just kept shouting "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'HOW WOULD I LIKE THEM COOKED?' JUST COOK THEM UP AND GIVE THEM TO ME." People flooded the comments to talk about how Pinkham needed to 'check his privilege' for expecting people to know that there is more than one way to cook an egg; completely ignoring the fact that the main source of ridicule wasn't the egg, but that the customer refused to listen while the server was explaining the restaurant's options, and just yelled until eggs appeared before him.*


*It turns out that the customer thought that the only method in existence was scrambling.
posted by Shouraku at 12:35 PM on November 25, 2015 [12 favorites]


The waiter seems dumbfounded that someone would request an alternate beverage besides Coca-Cola or coffee.

Mountain Dew is a Pepsi product. I don't think the confusion was about people drinking things besides coke or coffee, but that a person asked about a Pepsi product at a restaurant that serves Coke. Having said that, it's still a reasonable question for the customer to ask.

And then for the whole fish and chips exchange, he seems exasperated that the lady doesn't know what fish and chips is, despite the fact that A) it's not really super-common in America, and B) the phrase "fish and chips" is literally the only time we call french fries "chips". If someone's never had the item called "fish and chips" before (or has had the actual item but where it's been sensibly called "fried fish with side of fries", as plenty of non-pseudoanglophile restaurants call it), of course they're gonna be confused. It likely doesn't help that the waiter just keeps saying "the chips are fries," since we have a food called chips, and they are not fries.

Pinkham's Law!

(I jest Greg, I do respect your good faith interpretation)
posted by Shouraku at 1:40 PM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


For some reason, and I cannot possibly imagine why, I almost always empathize with whoever is being the stupidest in any given scenario, but I still read that series pretty regularly and did a bunch of yeah-butting in my head.

But now I want to tell this: I used to work in a Chinese restaurant, and there was this super fundamentalist family that would come in regularly. The wife and daughter both wore these bonnet things and kept their eyes down at all times, and never spoke a word. The patriarch spoke for both of them, even if you asked them a direct question. It almost seemed weird that they went out in public at all.

Anyways, this family was offended by our paper placemats with Chinese zodiac stuff on them, so when we saw them coming, we'd remove the placemats from the table before seating them. But one day, it was just really busy and someone (NOT ME) fucked up and sat them at a table with the placemats. I see the guy getting mad and I started molasses running like you do. I'm pretty sure I was literally in slow motion at that point, because by the time I got there, Ass Dad had managed to almost completely shred the stack of placemats into teeny tiny like eighth inch squares. And he stared directly at me as he finished the job, tossing it like confetti around the restaurant. I just know he wanted me crawling around at his feet cleaning up after his stupid little temper tantrum so he could gawp at my ass or something.

And I said, "We will take those away for you, you know. You don't have to do that," and he said, "We are a family that doesn't use placemats."

Like, fuckhead, I know why you don't like those placemats. Everyone knows why. Why are you fucking lying about it now? "We are a family that doesn't use placemats." OK.

They kept coming there, too, and whoever saw them first would announce as they were walking up, "Here comes a family that doesn't use placemats!"
posted by ernielundquist at 2:22 PM on November 25, 2015 [13 favorites]


I don't think the confusion was about people drinking things besides coke or coffee, but that a person asked about a Pepsi product at a restaurant that serves Coke.

I'll warrant that I may be in the minority but I cannot for the life of me bother to pay attention to which soft drinks are products of which companies.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:28 PM on November 25, 2015 [17 favorites]


I'll warrant that I may be in the minority but I cannot for the life of me bother to pay attention to which soft drinks are products of which companies.

"Having said that, it's still a reasonable question for the customer to ask"

I would have had to ask as well.
posted by Shouraku at 2:29 PM on November 25, 2015


Yeah, I don't recall who makes each soda, because why the fuck would you?
posted by corb at 2:33 PM on November 25, 2015


Weird, I pretty much always know who the manufacturer of a soda is because in my nearly 40 years of life on this planet, every time I've gone to a restaurant and ordered a soda, I'm usually either looking right at a fountain dispenser emblazoned with a huge fucking corporate logo, or a menu board that says PEPSI or COKE in the soft drink section, or I've got a menu in front of me listing out my options for soda.
posted by palomar at 2:47 PM on November 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


So, am I really the only one who thinks it's odd that a burger place didn't have tomato and lettuce?
posted by mysterious_stranger at 2:49 PM on November 25, 2015 [8 favorites]


So, am I really the only one who thinks it's odd that a burger place didn't have tomato and lettuce?

KAZOOOOOOOOS!

No, you're not the only one. I suspect that manager's failure to have basic burger staples plus dickbag customer equals alligator plus party hat store.
posted by infinitewindow at 2:58 PM on November 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


A) it's not really super-common in America,

Wait, what America do you live in, that doesn't have fast food chains like Long John Silver's, Captain D's, and Red Lobster that feature "fish 'n' chips"? (When I was a kid there was also Arthur Treacher's.) I mean, I'm with you that it's the one and only case where Americans refer to fries as chips, but it's nonetheless super-common to refer to the combo of batter-fried fish and French Fries as "fish and chips."
posted by dnash at 3:20 PM on November 25, 2015 [9 favorites]


I have never seen fish and chips referred to as "fried fish with fries" or anything else ever in the US. On the other hand it shouldn't be that hard to explain.
posted by bleep at 3:36 PM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Makes me glad to work in a public library; call me a cunt and you're history
posted by superior julie at 4:25 PM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


I don't know if there's a first person rule for BCO stories, but here's a thing that happened in a restaurant where I worked. It didn't happen to me, I witnessed the fall-out but not the actual incident and I trust the person who told me the story.

I worked in the kitchen in a place that was mostly a club/bar but made some decent food. From 5 to 9pm it was a low volume sit-down entree place, and from 9pm to close it was a high-volume fried finger-foods place for people getting their swerve on.

The owner was cool and had a two free drinks rule after every shift for every employee (with no rollover). As I was not one to leave my employee benefits un-utilized, I made a habit of enjoying my two freebies and sometimes stayed on for more.

So one night, after the kitchen is closed and I'm hovering around the bar enjoying my employee benefits, I watched one of the bartenders weave through the crowd with the bouncer right behind her. I know something is going on, so I watch and wait for the shitshow to unfold.

She finds a woman in the crowd and she says, "I'm sorry honey, you can't do that here, you have to go." There's some argument in low tones that I can't hear and some suggestive hand gestures and then bouncer steps up and makes her and her friends finish their drinks, pay their tabs, and get out posthaste.

What did she do? I dunno, but I'm willing to drink beer until closing time to hear the story.

The bar closes, patrons are gone, and we finally hear it: the bartender was taking a bathroom break and there was a short line in the ladies room. She's next, on-deck, waiting for a stall, and from one of the toilets she hears *jiggle*jiggle*jiggle*, *jiggle*jiggle*jiggle*. Apparently it was a known issue, in one of the toilets the chain that connects the handle to the flapper would disconnect and the toilet wouldn't flush until you took the lid off the basin and hooked them back together.

So the bartender says in a loud voice, "Hey, I work here, that toilet has some problems, don't worry about it, I'll fix it. I'll make it flush." Because she just wants that other lady to get moving so she can pee.

So the *jiggle*jiggle*jiggle* lady gives up and leaves the stall, the bartender enters, finally her turn. Surveying the situation, she's a little confused; there's three squares of tp with a little butt debris floating around the bowl, but no turds. Whatever, she pulls the lid off the toilet, reconnects the chain to the flapper and does her thing. But before she leaves, she listens to her spidey-sense about something not adding up and looks behind the commode. There she finds a high ball glass sitting on the bathroom floor.

That high ball glass contains the evidence of a recently consumed beverage; there's some weepy ice, a scrunched up lime wedge, two cocktail straws; plus a big, firm, brown human turd.

There's no extra toilet water or tp in that glass, there's no reason to believe that that glass was dipped in the toilet to capture the turd. It really looks like she pulled the turd out of the bowl manually and put it in the glass to hide her evacuation.

So the bartender grabs the bouncer to go find the shit-in-a-glass lady and bounces her to the street.
posted by peeedro at 4:39 PM on November 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


I slung the bag over my shoulder like the fucking Santa Claus of popcorn and sat in the seat directly in front of hers. I put my giant ridiculous garbage bag of popcorn on the seat next to me and ate out of it, in a comically animated way for the rest of the movie. I stuck my whole arm in there, swirled it around, shoved it in my face like cookie monster. It was not dignified. It was not pretty. But it felt so fucking good. Look at all this popcorn! None of it is for you, potato lady! I’m just throwing it on the ground! Here ground! This is for you! Don’t worry chair, it’s not free if I give it to you!
posted by radiosilents at 4:52 PM on November 25, 2015 [5 favorites]


All I know is that the woman who cauterized her knife wound and went back to cooking is a goddamn pro and I want to eat wherever she works.

Also, just bring me a bottle of Piglio Griglio so I can enjoy that because the baked-potato-instead-of-hashbrowns story nearly broke me.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 6:01 PM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


I can totally believe #26 about how Colonel Sanders played grabass with somebody's Mom shortly before scooping out mashed potatoes and gravy with his bare hands. I know somebody personally (Southerner from Tennessee, slightly older than me) who also met Colonel Sanders in that era, and his impression was that Sanders was downright senile by that point. According to my friend, he was at a hotel when Sanders asked the shoeshine guy to shine his shoes. The problem was that Sanders was wearing fluffy bedroom slippers at the time. So, unless Sanders was some Andy Kaufman-like gonzo comedy genius before his time, I'm going to with, "Yeah... he was probably senile."
posted by jonp72 at 6:24 PM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Awww, the truck stop Santa. However, as a Jew who has been interrogated about my strange disinclination to celebrate Christmas (does no-one read the manual these days?), the Psycho Santa was unpleasantly familiar.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:51 PM on November 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I kind of feel sorry for water glass shit lady! That sounds terrible all around.
posted by corb at 8:19 PM on November 25, 2015


I hope the woman who cauterized her arm cut herself with a cheap knife, because after heating it to a red glow she ruined the steel.

Someone has to defend the poor knives.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:24 PM on November 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Sara is a goddamn hero. (Well, the idea of her is.)

My experience in the restaurant industry tells me that horrible people are usually rewarded for being horrible.

Oh totally. I think these stories make it precisely because they're so unusual. I've only seen true hardcore Fuck You We Don't Want Your Money That Much done three times-- twice by the executive chef (at two different restaurants), and once by a busboy (!) who had appointed himself expo (!!--ps, useless), who despite being told to stay away went to a table of people who had been there three days in a row to ask them what they were going to complain about to get a free meal tonight.

Two of those people kept their jobs for more than ninety seconds. Servers just don't often do these full-on things because the stakes are pretty high. The chef or general manager or owner has latitude to do these things--one went to a table and said, smiling the whole time, "we have taken care of your entire bill. Leave my restaurant now, please. That means get the fuck out" while the server goggled. They left, chef came back into the kitchen, like nothing happened. Busboy dude though, he was fired and out the door before anyone even knew what was going on. Servers who do this are putting everything on the line and I feel sometimes like these stories are exaggerated for effect. Like my hero Sara above... I think in real life she plausibly spilled some sangria on the jerk. I don't believe she upended a pitcher on her. Any server who did that would be fired so fast you could measure it in significant fractions of lightspeed. Bourdain did it in Kitchen Confidential; war stories grow a bit in the retelling.

Some of the stories do ring really true though--the bizarre demands and the weird belief that at a restaurant servers are your private staff who tell the kitchen what you want them to do, no matter what it is. Had a guest who decided to have the Thing instead of the Other Thing, because the Other Thing was sous-vide, and he "didn't believe in sous-vide." The server pointed out that the Thing was also cooked sous vide, and the guest said "I told you I don't like sous vide, I'll have the Thing." Oooo... kay? Or the one who didn't want the potato with the steak, and said quote "tell the chef I suggested rice." Only time so far I've seen the chef actually speechless. (NB: couple specifics changed for obvious reasons).

And sometimes it's super annoying and sad at the same time. One guest at a previous restaurant ordered an appetizer with seven components to come on individual plates, because they couldn't touch. Annoying and made us grumble--and at the same time it's evidence of such an unhappy relationship with food that you want to just make whatever they want so it makes them happy or makes a stressful situation somewhat easier. We all want desperately to please, and we might say fuck you while we're doing it, and we're still going to deliver the best we can. Or I've been lucky to have worked with a majority of people who are like that, who provide something to try to be. Like I worked under a chef who haaaaaaaaated pickup/takeout orders and would just be like "bah just throw it in the container whenever," and yet when it was any components they were responsible for they'd be just as conscientious as always.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:19 PM on November 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


Godammit, Jacob. I have been Jacob, to my eternal shame.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:22 PM on November 25, 2015


I think the Mountain Dew bit in the fish'n'chips one was more of an attempt to spice up the story - if the customer's order hadn't gone spectacularly south those details would've never registered.

(Also, perhaps I'm a psychopath, but I was always here for the more extreme revenge stories. Ten years of customer service and my empathy for assholes on the other side of the counter has shriveled and fallen off. Throw 'em into a pit of spiders and pee on them, I don't give a shit.)
posted by Gin and Broadband at 11:53 PM on November 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'll warrant that I may be in the minority but I cannot for the life of me bother to pay attention to which soft drinks are products of which companies.

You spit in the face of every veteran of the Cola Wars!

*Pours a Teem on the curb in memory of Fido Dido*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:35 AM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Serious question: how the fuck can it be legal to require servers to tip out on tip they did not receive?
posted by corb at 2:42 AM on November 26, 2015


Legal? Really? I didn't even get a lunch break at most of the places I worked. Legal has a very loose definition as a server.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 3:27 AM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


WE SAID NO POOP STORIES.
posted by clvrmnky at 7:06 AM on November 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


Well, there was that time I cut the tip off of my thumb off and it probably ended up in the soup.

Again, not really a customer horror story.

I also never had to ever boil an egg as a short order cook. Soft boiled eggs were never on any menu I'd worked. Once a nice old lady gently taught me how to make her a soft boiled egg.

Again, no horror. Other than existential horror at being 19 years old and in charge of a kitchen. Owned by born again Christians. And the dishwasher was a speed head. And I was dropping a lot of acid. And hanging out with a lot of girls. Who were pretty obvious about wanting casual sex. With me.

I'm not sure I even noticed customers at that gig.
posted by clvrmnky at 7:16 AM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


I am really fascinated that "fish & chips" could be an exoticism in parts of the USA. Here in Canada -- in Ontario, at least -- it is practically ubiquitous on any pub or family restaurant menu. I guess that's something you lost for fighting off the redcoats.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:18 AM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm more curious what kind of fish would have counted as real fish.
posted by RobotHero at 10:00 AM on November 26, 2015


Just "fish", I think. If the server hadn't bothered specifying it was "cod", I bet that person would have just said "Oh, okay, this is 'fish'" upon tasting it.
posted by Etrigan at 10:12 AM on November 26, 2015


I guess I can see someone not encountering "chips" before, and certainly can see not keeping track of what company makes what drink, but it really astonishes me that someone would somehow not learn there are different kinds of fish.
posted by RobotHero at 10:23 AM on November 26, 2015


I hope the woman who cauterized her arm cut herself with a cheap knife, because after heating it to a red glow she ruined the steel.

Someone has to defend the poor knives.


Considering that it was the knife that caused her to need to use a red hot knife to cauterize a severe wound in the first place, I'd say it got what was coming to it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:31 AM on November 26, 2015 [8 favorites]


Where I grew up, fried fish with french fries was referred to as "a fish fry." Of course, I made a passing effort to try to learn about things outside of my own community, but if I hadn't, who knows.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:33 PM on November 26, 2015


According to the unassailable wisdom of Wikipedia, fish and chips is understood by most of the USA, with the exception of Wisconsin/Mid-Westy places, where it is called fish fry. Also, I'm pretty sure Red Lobster doesn't have "Fish & French Fries (It's Supposed To Be Chips But We Got Tired Of You Ignorant Fucks Bitching Because You Were Expecting A Side Of Lays With Your Halibut)" on their menu.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:19 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


So, is tartar sauce a standard for all the fish and chip menus out there?

Condiments are oddly regional. Even in Canada, cider vinegar for your chips is hit or miss across the nation.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:09 PM on November 26, 2015


BTW: I'm pretty sure the confusion in "cod fish" versus "real fish" is because — especially in the UK, I think? — the word "cod" can mean "fake" or "subpar". So, instead of hearing "cod, the species of fish" they were hearing "cod, i.e. imitation fish".
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 7:43 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


(also, it seems I usually see Malt Vinegar with fish & chips in Seattle)
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 7:44 PM on November 26, 2015


Cod is fish in the UK. Its the canonical Chip Shop fish, if you want to mix things up a bit you have the haddock.
posted by Helga-woo at 1:37 AM on November 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


I had a second job at a Mexican restaurant in Ipswich, Qld, Australia for about 9 years (the food was great by the way, no idea whether it was 'authentic' or not but I think the fact that our tacos were served in crunchy taco shells is a bit of a giveaway). Anyway, about the second year I'd been working there we moved to a house that had been converted into a restaurant which was located behind the local police station (that made smoking pot in the kitchen after service had finished and blowing the smoke into the exhaust fan somewhat fraught) and we had a lovely verandah where everyone wanted to sit because Ipswich is ridiculously hot in summer. One night someone was in the lockup who really didn't want to be there and due to the acoustics of the area their screams of 'FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING SHITHEAD CUNT FUCKING ARSEHOLE' resounded throughout the street and our customers were actually asking to come inside to one of the little hotboxes where the other tables were. That was fun. The time the boss got absolutely ratshit drunk before he'd even started cooking the food for the table of 12 was fun too.

Your definition of fun may be different from mine.

Anyway, loved these stories. Roadhouse Santa is my hero.
posted by h00py at 4:45 AM on November 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


s/cider/malt/

Yeah, it didn't feel right when I wrote that, but my brain didn't find the right word.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:41 AM on November 27, 2015


Yeah - that's the bigger question, is how they'd gone through life never knowing about cod.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 2:29 PM on November 27, 2015


with the exception of Wisconsin/Mid-Westy places, where it is called fish fry


So I live in Wisconsin, right down the road from the mayor of Milwaukee's favorite fish fry place, and you're blowing my mind here. I always figured a fish fry was just the fish, but it came with fries because what else would you want as a side on a Friday night? But the fries weren't really a part of it. Just a bonus.

But instead it's an actual Thing?


I can't decide if this makes Friday nights fancier, or fish 'n chips considerably less so.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:05 AM on November 29, 2015


Where I come from (East Texas), a "fish fry" is an event at which fish (if not catfish then a similar thin freshwater/lake fish) is fried in cornmeal batter, along with hush puppies and probably fries or fried potatoes. But even a relatively sheltered person in that region would likely have been to a chain restaurant that had fish and chips - and probably also salmon grilled or cedar-plank'd, these days, and most certainly featured on a photo insert. McDonald's Filet'o'Fish sandwich is made from a cod-like substance (though I realize now, as an adult, that those sandwiches were just for Catholics and me, so possibly they'd never seen one up close), as are fish sticks, but then I guess maybe that's why they might have thought it was not "real fish".

So I'm not sure what someone from those circumstances would have considered real fish, but it might have meant catfish.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:52 PM on November 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rev. Syung Myung Me: "BTW: I'm pretty sure the confusion in "cod fish" versus "real fish" is because — especially in the UK, I think? — the word "cod" can mean "fake" or "subpar"."

Eh, I think cod in the sense of false is a Briticism.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:03 PM on November 29, 2015


Again, in the isolated little hamlet where I came of age and entered the working world, haddock was the standard kind of fish used in a fish fry, and cod would be something you substituted to keep costs down. I can *kind of* imagine one of our Friday night regulars - mostly old farm/factory ladies whose prime cognitive and temperamental years were long behind them - making a complaint along the lines of, "You're givin' me cod 'stead a reg'lur fish?"

However, I *cannot* imagine it descending into some kind of protracted Abbot-and-Costello-Go-To-Hell situation like it did in the linked story. My customer would not have WANTED cod instead of the kind of fish she assumed was standard, but she would have at least understood that it was just a different kind of fish being offered to her.

I do have my one backtalk moment that I'm a little prod of, because I think it went completely over the customer's head. So, I accomplished the twin goals of giving good service while making myself feel a little better. I was working part-time in a deli during the school year. We made and sold these pre-packaged "Italian-style chef salads," which were basically a chef salad with salami or pepperoni instead of turkey, mozzarella for the cheese, and the addition of black olives, and either banana peppers or sweet peppers. They were very popular. There was also a little tablet next to them in the case, with a checklist of all the salad ingredients we had in stock, and CUSTOM MADE or MADE TO ORDER or something like that on it.

An older and younger woman came in and muttered over the salads for a while, declined help when I offered it, picked up each salad, shook it, looked at it from every angle, and then unceremoniously dropped it back in the case while I helped some other people. Finally, she yelled across the store, "CAN YOU JUST TELL ME WHY MY DAUGHTER CAN'T JUST GET A REG'LUR SALAD, WITHOUT ALL THIS SHIT ALL OVER IT?!?"

At that moment, she looked exactly like something out of a cartoon, so I just couldn't help smiling. Grinning! I reached around her and got the pad of custom-made salad forms and chirped, "You know, I have no idea. But if you'll just let me know which ingrediants are reg'lur and which ones are shit, I'll make you the best salad you've had all afternoon." Turned out a "Reg'jur Salad" is iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and American cheese. The whole time I was making it, she kept asking for reassurance that people did, indeed, really eat all that shit. Did I eat that shit? Yes, I ate that shit. Did children eat that shit? Yes, children ate that shit. But we ended having to throw away most of that shit at the end of the day, right? No, I had never had to throw any of that shit away.

(Someone I knew at the local sub shop told me that she was constantly demanding refunds because she would open up her sub and the mayo would be touching the meat. Because it made her gag. That's just gross, and doesn't everybody know that? No, she didn't want her mayo on the side, she just wanted her subs prepared correctly, with no mayo touching the meat.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:00 AM on November 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


Just a friendly reminder - today is the first day of BCO at Wonkette.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:19 PM on November 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


and a note on that - some of the banner/side ads on Wonkette are nearly NSFW
posted by everybody had matching towels at 2:32 PM on November 30, 2015


Now I'm imagining that lady with a little catapult mounted on the side of her car for hurling burgers back in the drive thru window when they're not made to her liking. Pew! Pew! Pew!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:42 PM on November 30, 2015


And today is where I learned that Wonkette is block at work. :(
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:47 AM on December 3, 2015


NoxAeternum: "Just a friendly reminder - today is the first day of BCO at Wonkette."

The Editor’s Note made me laugh out loud.
posted by RobotHero at 2:29 PM on December 5, 2015


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