Chef's View: Literacy and Education are Primary to Food Safety in India

The fact that literacy and education are primary to food safety in India, and that regulatory authorities like the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) should take on some of that responsibility and accountability, is borne out by my own experience. It is important to understand that many cooks and kitchen personnel in India’s numerous standalone restaurants or chains are drawn from a semi-literate or illiterate milieu in search of a livelihood. Again, literacy alone does not make for awareness, as I have discovered.

When I first stepped out of the home kitchen as a restaurant consultant more than a decade ago, I had no idea that there were food-safety regulations specifically for restaurants. No one enlightened me or the unlettered line cooks I was training at my very first casual fine-dine restaurant chain. My sense of hygiene was what I had followed in my own home. I kept a keen eye on the washing of perishables and followed the strict rules embedded in the Indian concept of jhootha or pollution of food, seeing to it that every tasting spoon was washed before being used again or the same spatula or cookware were not used for vegetarian and non-vegetarian or oils for frying were kept separate.

The cooks who came from very poor villages followed their own rules, born out of thrift. The concept of discarding ingredients past their prime, understandably, did not exist in their vocabulary. If spices or grains got insect-ridden, they simply sunned them. Fish, meats and vegetables were procured fresh and used up before any calamity struck. Their ingrained sense of atithi devo bhava (guest is God) did not allow them to serve stale food. Instead, they ate it themselves. Kitchens and freezers were kept clean by habits followed at home and not because they had been trained to do so. If norms set down by regulatory authorities were not followed, it was not out of callousness. They simply didn’t know any better. In my five years with them, I don’t remember any checks by food-safety authorities. Yes, they came, had tea and snacks and then left with more chai-pani money (a small bribe).

Strict Vigilance

I moved on with other assignments to five-star hotels, populated with trained personnel out of hotel management schools. The scenario was decidedly different. Here is where I first learnt that chopping boards were supposed to be colour-coded for vegetarian, non-vegetarian and fruits and that gloves and caps were a must. Five-star hotels with deeper pockets have their own in-house regulatory teams which monitor, among other protocols, thorough checking of freezers for expiry dates of raw materials and foods, and more. Random checks are conducted with samples collected from between fingers to monitor cleanliness and hygiene. However, if there was even the slightest lack of supervision, many among the staff skipped the rules because they couldn’t comprehend the logic or couldn’t read or understand instructions. And some like me who had no idea how many times and how I had to scrub my hands, that no jewellery was allowed in kitchens or that the slightest cough or cold meant I had to take leave.

It was only when I joined as a consultant to a fine-dining restaurant in Singapore that I became aware of what food-safety regulations really mean. I had to attend a mandatory two-day training workshop by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) from nine in the morning to five in the evening and then take an exam to be certified fit to work. I was not alone. There were several workers who couldn’t read or write and hence everything was also pictorially or physically demonstrated. This certification had to be renewed with a refresher course every three years, failing which I would lose my eligibility, and the restaurant would be severely fined or lose its licence.

The SFA kept strict vigilance and came on regular checks. Therefore, I was forced to apply my learnings, for instance, on how perishables should be stored, raw, semi-cooked and cooked, or a slight fever, cough or cold meant I could only return to the kitchen with a ‘good-to-go’ certificate from a designated doctor. In short, the SFA worked as a collaborative body, taking joint responsibility in ensuring food safety. The fear of certification being cancelled kept the staff on their toes and soon protocols became habit.

The Indian Scenario

My point here is most Indian kitchens have staff like a semi-literate Shafiq or illiterate Raju from some remote village in India or Nepal who are skilled but blissfully unaware or uncaring of food-safety protocols. Many smaller restaurant kitchens are completely helmed by them. If they were to be done away with, the commercial food industry would collapse, as observed by the corporate chef of a large restaurant chain.

The FSSAI conducts trainings for only two people from each department—back-end and front-end, he says. The quality, quantity and efficacy of those trainings then need to be re-evaluated.

More importantly, the FSSAI’s role needs to be one of continuous collaboration instead of adversarial. There needs to be a dialogue on the challenges that commercial establishments face. On the flip side, restaurants need to strengthen and increase supervisory roles. Finally, formal education and literacy are of primary importance if one must introduce internationally accepted food-safety protocols. Only then can the FSSAI reach the impressive goals it has set for itself, and the public is assured of safe food.

(Views expressed are personal)

Pritha Sen is a Gurgaon-based consultant and food historian