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The staff ate it later

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Re: The staff ate it later

#21
post #4

It's related to the concept of Mottainai (もったいない, 勿体無い) in Japanese culture. Where any waste is considered bad, specially related to food. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai

There is a similar concept in English culture called "waste".

Doesn't sound as strong due to the lack of tv captions

Re: The staff ate it later

#23
post #19

I wonder how this plays out. As noted sometimes the staff can't eat it, heck sometimes you might not want to eat it. That has to happen pretty often. I worked at a company with a particularly sensitive HR team who would host pizza parties now and then, but they'd only order "weird" pizzas and I guess they liked it, but they were quite miffed when people stopped coming / didn't want to eat some pizza with some kind of…

> didn't want to eat some pizza with some kind of fake cheese and unrecognizable veggies.

What I want to know is what ghastly pizza establishment serves fake cheese and what are mystery veggies?

Re: The staff ate it later

#24
post #19

I wonder how this plays out. As noted sometimes the staff can't eat it, heck sometimes you might not want to eat it. That has to happen pretty often. I worked at a company with a particularly sensitive HR team who would host pizza parties now and then, but they'd only order "weird" pizzas and I guess they liked it, but they were quite miffed when people stopped coming / didn't want to eat some pizza with some kind of…

> didn't want to eat some pizza with some kind of fake cheese and unrecognizable veggies. What I want to know is what ghastly pizza establishment serves fake cheese and what are mystery veggies?

It was from an actually good pizza place that had some wild choices for pizzas.

Inexplicably they didn't order any of the "regular" pizzas from there.

Re: The staff ate it later

#25
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is why they tend to have plastic food displays at restaurant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_model

I think the plastic food displays are due to high uncertainty avoidance, so patrons can see exactly what their meal looks like before ordering. Yes you could use real food but the hassle of periodically filling the display case with freshly cooked dishes would be silly.

Some American restaurants have real food displays, too. With a chilled display case and limited airflow (and choosing only meals that keep well - avoiding exhibition of garnishes or salads that wilt in hours), you can put the same dessert on display for days.

At the end, of course, you have to throw it away - it might not be safe for staff to eat by the point it's visibly decomposing from 3 feet away. I find that just knowing the food in the case is destined for the garbage to rankle, especially when I'm simultaneously looking at menu prices and wondering why the meal costs so much; it's interesting to learn that the Japanese make those meal displays out of plastic/wax for the same reason.

Re: The staff ate it later

#29
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is why they tend to have plastic food displays at restaurant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_model

I think the plastic food displays are due to high uncertainty avoidance, so patrons can see exactly what their meal looks like before ordering. Yes you could use real food but the hassle of periodically filling the display case with freshly cooked dishes would be silly.

We should have more picture menus where every single menu item has a actual picture of the food served, instead of the guest trying to imagine the food based on often deceptive and flowery text descriptions.

Re: The staff ate it later

#30
post #19

I wonder how this plays out. As noted sometimes the staff can't eat it, heck sometimes you might not want to eat it. That has to happen pretty often. I worked at a company with a particularly sensitive HR team who would host pizza parties now and then, but they'd only order "weird" pizzas and I guess they liked it, but they were quite miffed when people stopped coming / didn't want to eat some pizza with some kind of…

Many years ago, I was on a training course, all typical engineers, and the guy who had organized it, a foodie, had ordered the day's spread from a very expensive and fancy catering place. Skeptical engineers eyeing the spread, which included such things as "cold orange soup"; one of them said "I should have brought my rabbit".

The message was clearly received. Next day and subsequent ones, an equally high quality spread of actual engineer food was tabled. But with no rabbit to eat it up, I think a lot of the first day's spread was wasted.

This was during the pre-2K tech boom years (this dates me!) Really fancy catering at (my) work is a distant memory now.

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