In many of the nation's urban centres, it is usual to see people from different walks of life queue up to buy food from different food vendors. Many of us are so intent on what we want to do that we seldom pay any attention to what the food seller is doing. We want to eat quickly and return to our various offices. Others are intent on making every kobo of their hard-earned money count for every grain of rice. In this season where corn and groundnuts are so readily available, we are in a hurry to make purchases, sometimes from the comfort of our cars, and fail to pay adequate attention to what the seller is doing. Many of these food vendors are unbelievably dirty, with no etiquette whatsoever. Some weeks ago, I stood among several people who wanted to buy corn and watched with some impatience as the woman selling the corn paid more attention to her usual customers while leaving the rest of us who were not regulars to watch helplessly as her 'chosen' people bought up all the choice corn cobs. But in retrospect, the anger of having to wait unduly long was rewarded by nauseating observations made of the transactions.
Almost like an automaton, the seller would turn the roasting corn on the open fire and dip her fingers in her mouth to cool them with her saliva before handling the corn again. She would repeat this motion several times in the course of roasting one cob of corn before eventually handing it to the buyer. The handover of the roasted corn cob is incomplete unless the seller wets her fingers one last time with her saliva in order to open a polythene bag that will contain the finished product. To say the least, nothing can be more revolting than this sort of thing and we are either oblivious of the fact that it is occurring or we all pretend that it is not. I left that woman's stand feigning impatience, but it was important to find out how widespread this practice was as I took trips to several eating joints around Lagos. The observations made are truly baffling.
At a tea joint on Lagos Island, watching the brisk business going on among the buyers and sellers of loaves of 'Agege bread' with tea was a spectacle. Men especially, came in a steady stream to place their orders. Fried eggs were a part of the mix. The 'mai shai' was busy fulfilling the orders but with equal speed, his fingers frequently flew into his mouth for wetting with saliva before he handled a fresh loaf of bread. It was like the tradition and no one, apart from yours truly, appeared to notice. At another fairly well-kept restaurant, a woman serving rice had a way of partially occluding the depth of her serving spoon with her thumb. At some point, some rice was stuck to that thumb and without batting an eyelid; she took it all into her mouth and wiped the rice clean. The same thumb returned to the spoon and the serving of rice continued unhurried. Nobody seemed to be paying attention and none seemed to care.
At another spot in Pedro, an 'Amala spot' was a beehive of activity. A certain woman who was dishing out the food was offended by a particular customer and she railed and ranted even while serving the ewedu soup. Form a vantage position; one could see bursts of saliva in aerosol form actually inundating the open bowl of soup. It was a major effort not to begin screaming that the soup should be discarded. In the end though, for fear of even provoking more verbal violence, one simply walked away. Down the road from this atrocity was a suya spot, where a similar conduct was observed and one began to wonder what was wrong with us as a people. Now this is terrible, to put it mildly. People show no respect for others and so food vendors think that folks have no choice but to eat their food because they are hungry or they are unable to afford what was on offer in a modern restaurant due to the relatively higher cost.
This attitude is without question a public health issue which the governments are powerless to legislate against. The best police in this case is the individual; we must learn to tell it as it is. If a food-seller dips her fingers in her mouth before she hands you the food you are paying for, you have a duty to reject that meal. If someone wets their fingers in their mouth before handling the food you are primed to eat, you do not have to accept that food, whether it is fresh from the fire or not. It is not hygienic. We do not have to make excuses for this kind of conduct because it is patently wrong. It is also a revolting act. When put to several people hypothetically over the last several weeks, I was amused at the various reactions which ranged from horror to outright rage. And yet, outside of our homes, we become oblivious of it or do not wish to acknowledge that it is happening or perhaps, being in a public place, we do not wish to upset the apple cart, and so swallow the rubbish. We should be bold in challenging those who break the protocol of neatness while handling the food we are set to eat. Besides, we can walk away from the scene and be bold enough to state loudly and clearly why we won't be eating such food. And since payment for food usually follows its serving, it is an easy act to carry out. Indeed, even if returning the money already paid is not possible, the potential of being saved from contracting any disease is more than compensatory.
The reasons for trying very hard to discourage this kind of conduct in an eatery are pretty obvious. Several infections can be transmitted like this and yet others can be contracted, leading to life-threatening conditions. While the mouth is not a sterile entity in any individual, those ones that are not well cared for are particularly at risk of disseminating both bacteria and viruses that can cause debilitating diseases. With this mindset, it is my hope that people who, either habitually or out of necessity, eat outside their own homes would be more vigilant at the places where they obtain their edibles and refuse to accept tainted meals. We can advice them (food vendors) to keep a small bowl nearby at all times which contain some water that will be indispensable in keeping the fingers wet enough to attain the friction required to hold on to objects, make it easy to open polythene bags or count money. They should be educated that the use of saliva defeats the purpose of keeping food clean and is naturally repugnant. Persistence of these habits in any eatery owner should lead to an organised boycott.
Source: The Punch
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