At most gatherings, the first question many attendees ask is "Where's Hospitality?"
The Hospitality Suite and the food and drinks served there form the centerpiece of most gatherings. We arrive, grab a plate of chips, veggies, meat, cheese and dip, or maybe a hotdog and something to drink, and sit down to catch up on what everyone's been doing since we last saw them. Probably the last thing on anyone's mind is how the food we're eating was prepared and whether it's safe to eat. Most of the time, we spend the evening laughing with everyone and having a great time, but at gatherings across the country, from the smallest to the largest, at RGs best known for their "gourmet" meals and even at AGs, some attendees have been getting food poisoning. At one gathering a few years ago, a number of attendees wound up spending several hours at the local emergency room — a memorable, but most unpleasant way to spend an evening.
This situation is occurring often enough that some of us active in the RG community — as well as members of the AMC — have taken notice. If this unsafe situation doesn't improve, the whole nature of hospitality at gatherings might be changed.
People who work in the food service industry know that foodborne illness is a fact of life. The problem can't be eliminated, but it can be minimized through proper food handling, preparation and service. What we in Mensa sometimes overlook is that when we're organizing or working in Hospitality, we're undertaking the same tasks and responsibilities as a restaurant chef or caterer. We function with little of the established training, procedures or equipment that professionals use to keep their guests safe. We tend to minimize the issue by thinking that, since we don't have problems at home feeding our family and friends, nothing will happen to any of our guests at our gatherings either.
But the logistics of food preparation for six or eight in a home kitchen are very different from those required for feeding a hundred, or a thousand. Even simply heating large volumes of food to a safe temperature requires time and equipment that go well beyond our experiences at home; and yet we blithely do these things in makeshift kitchens, set up in a hotel room or bathroom without sufficient thought to the true scope of the tasks. (How many times have you seen someone kneeling in front of a hotel bathtub in Hospitality prep, trying to wash a serving bowl or a platter so a different snack can be served, or someone complaining that the fuse for the microwave ovens has blown again?)
Doing things like this is simply irrational, but we keep doing them the same way. There is a huge body of knowledge available to us from the food service industry; why don't we take advantage of it?
There are no secrets to preventing food poisoning. In fact, it's really very simple — keep the prep area, tools and food clean; don't contaminate the food with cleaners or other chemicals; and keep cold food cold and hot food hot to prevent bacteria growth. But how cold is cold enough? How hot is hot enough? Which cleaners are safe to use? How long does it take before various types of food "expire" and have to be thrown out? And how can bulk snacks like M&Ms be served inexpensively while minimizing the risk of spreading any cold or flu an attendee might have? Limiting such offerings to "individually packaged snacks" is not the answer we're looking for here.
After much research and discussion by a committee headed by Pat Coontz (RVC 9) and staffed by several Mensa volunteers — who have both worked in the food service industry and been involved with hospitality at regional and annual gatherings — the AMC accepted a proposal to make available for the membership a food safety course developed at Penn State University. Titled "Cooking for Crowds," the course was designed for volunteers in non-profit organizations, specifically targeted to help those who prepare food for large groups occasionally and with less facilities and equipment than professional cooks might have. The class can be completed in six to eight hours and is being offered at some LDWs. It could also be offered to any interested local group or regional consortium.
The AMC is currently discussing food safety as it relates to gatherings, and will likely be setting policy related to Hospitality at gatherings. There are many different schools of thought both within the AMC and within the membership at large as to how to encourage (or require) the adoption of safer practices in hospitality at gatherings. Discuss this topic with your friends and make your RVC aware of your views on it.
Tom Tyson has been in and around the food service industry most of his life. He has had jobs doing everything from dish washer and food prep to line cook, chef and restaurant management. In Mensa, he has served as Hospitality Chair for a number of RGs (most recently the 2004 Jefferson Country RG / AMC Meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he and a very small staff prepared and served three hot meals for all the attendees). For the past year and a half he has been writing a column on specific topics about hospitality and food safety in Party Smart, the Hell's M's SIG newsletter. Now a member of the Hospitality Committee for the 2005 AG in New Orleans, Tom will be responsible for the minute-by-minute running of Hospitality during the gathering.