287497 Wed Aug 15 10:55:59 -0700 2001 20 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1546735 all right, here is what is really been bugging me. is seeing a bowl on a restaurant table filled with these packages of nutrasweet,sacarin, supra, whatever and one pack of sugar. they are almost everywhere, except in some highend places. are the owners telling us we need to use them. are there that many diabetics or dieters that real sugar has been completely displaced. why am i forced to stare at these packs. why cant they be simply off the table until someone requests them. the same for the salt and peppers shakers. if i want sugar with my coffee i will ask for it and expect a small bowl of sugar with a spoon. i also strongly dislike places leaving little jelly packs out so you can have them with your toast. i have even seen this done in europe. i know iam whining a bit but it seems that the little things are what bug me the most. Wed Aug 15 10:55:59 -0700 2001 0 mrranchcuisine 1 1546736 I also think that's really tacky. But there's something that bugs me even more - and that's those little foil-wrapped squares of butter. Maybe it's a hygiene thing, but more 'enlightened' restaurants manage to serve butter in ramekins or on a plate or something...Even if it is the same brand of butter that is served in the foil, somehow I feel the venue has at least made an effort. Good butter in bad foil is worse that bad butter served with a bit more panache. If a restaurant bothers to serve good bread (and not many do) then why ruin it by serving those little pre-fab butter squares? It's like getting airplane condiments on the ground. End of pet peeve. Wed Aug 15 11:47:43 -0700 2001 1546735 0 magnolia 2 1546738 I believe this is a hygiene matter because many restaurants have been known to take used butter from a table and slap some fresh butter on top of it and serve it to the next table. Now you know how icky it is when someone uses their food-encrusted knife to scoop out butter (same as the ketchup issue recently written about). The packets may be tacky but at least they're covered and I like the Land 'o Lakes one. Some places serve them in a pretty bowl. Wed Aug 15 11:53:38 -0700 2001 1546736 0 Ruby 3 1546739 My only complaint about the foil wrapped butter is when it comes cold--ie rock hard. Then when I spread on my roll, the roll gets torn apart. Anu suggestions on how to keep my roll in one piece? Wed Aug 15 12:15:00 -0700 2001 1546738 0 fatboy 4 1546749 I warm the foil-wrapped butter pat in my hands for a moment or two. Voila! No torn bread. Wed Aug 15 13:04:28 -0700 2001 1546739 0 Dena 4 1546801 Unwrap the butter pat; put it in your mouth for a minute; it will be soft and gooey and easier to spread. Plus you gross out the people at the next table when you spit the butter out onto your roll. Thu Aug 16 08:52:07 -0700 2001 1546739 0 Cheesejake 3 1546746 A friend whose family owns two high-end Italian restaurants here in San Francisco told me that restaurants recycle the unused butter, so I have to believe it's true. Maybe it's because I've never had a really bad case of food poisoning, but I'm not that paranoid about hygiene (although I do wash my hands frequently and thoroughly, and I try to follow safe food handling practices at home). Our ancestors managed to survive for millions of years in unsanitary, not to mention unsterile, conditions. In fact, I worry about the proliferation of antibacterial cleaning products, which, like the misuse of antibiotics, have the potential to cause more harm than good by destroying beneficial bacteria and promoting the development of much tougher, more dangerous stains. Wed Aug 15 12:50:29 -0700 2001 1546738 0 Ruth Lafler 2 1546755 Yeah, but those foil wrapped butters are great for spreading on tortillas. Don't even have to get your knife dirty. Wed Aug 15 13:59:54 -0700 2001 1546736 0 Greg Spence 1 1546737 These packets are usually found in diners or pubs. I recall most restaurants bring the sugar/equal/sweet&low when they bring you coffee. In diners they're too busy to go back & forth for these small items. It's funny that packets on the table bug you because what annoys me is when I reach for a packet and it's been opened and half-used by a previous customer and then put back. Now who is gonna use a used packet? Anyway, if this annoys you, why not just move it to another table or ask the server to remove it. You shouldn't sit there and be bugged because of this. You're a Chowhound - enjoy yourself! Wed Aug 15 11:48:07 -0700 2001 1546735 0 Ruby 1 1546745 My pet peeve is that the jelly in packets in most of these places is so diluted that it has no flavor anyway. Better places serve excellent jam in little jars. I'd be willing to accept a small blob of supermarket quality jam. In Europe, you get the paté in little jars on the table, too. Wed Aug 15 12:42:26 -0700 2001 1546735 0 ironmom 1 1546747 I agree that this is a serious problem! But what bothers me even more is that the media refuses to even report it! If you were to get all your information from the evening "news", you wouldn't even realize that there was a sweetener-packet crisis! Wed Aug 15 12:51:37 -0700 2001 1546735 0 chris o 1 1546753 Exactly. It's about time someone had the courage to address this atrocity. Why, indeed, are we forced to stare at these packets? Does The Man believe we will thus be hypnotized and therefore unable to effectively plot a proletariat revolt? It is especially inconceivable that this is happening in, of all places, Europe. And don't even get me started on those jelly packets. Wed Aug 15 13:22:45 -0700 2001 1546735 0 Chris E. 2 1546757 Yeah! Not to mention the prison salt in those shakers to control the proletariat population so that we can be contained. Seriously MR, I have enough trouble getting water in some places. I'm grateful that some of the more commonly requested items are placed out for my convenience and the waitstaff's sanity. Except for jelly packets. I hate those as much as I hate miracle whip. Wed Aug 15 14:16:47 -0700 2001 1546753 0 Greg Spence 3 1546760 Don't get me started either -- though those jelly packets are NOTHING compared to the little individual servings of Knorr's hollaindaise sauce you get with eggs benedict at the local eateries ... Wed Aug 15 14:31:11 -0700 2001 1546757 0 Willowby 4 1546789 It's a sign. Don't eat there. Wed Aug 15 22:32:21 -0700 2001 1546760 0 ironmom 4 1546792 Boy...you guys sure eat at some fancy places...Hollandaise sauce in little packets? I'm lucky if the waiter brings me my butter and jelly before I have finished my toast. What are some of these places where you get such great service? Can you take any of the crap home? Wed Aug 15 23:22:28 -0700 2001 1546760 0 Jim H. 1 1546784 I may represent a minority voice here, but I kindof LIKE extra acutriments on the table - salt, pepper, butter, sugar, ketchup, tabasco, ect... It's like a little toolbox. I REALLY love Indian restaurants that bring an extra assortment of condiments to the table. Maybe it's a guy thing. Wed Aug 15 18:15:49 -0700 2001 1546735 0 fladd 1 1546812 As long as they haven't tethered a live goose on the table, (talk about crap everywhere), I am fine with the sweetners, faux and friend, and when the salt and pepper aren't there I feel myself begining to come adrift in the space-time continuum. Yeah, little jelly packets are a pain. Give me a big jar of raspberry or strawberry. Butter, either in a dish with ice or ice cold packets are a challenge, but one in which I revel solving. Usually the warm hands routine but now I to will take them into my mouth like a loving mother fish with her just hatched babies, and hope that my wife doesn't throw anything too sharp at my head. Besides, if the wait staff had to bring all this on request we would probably be caught in a Godot like condition, or the tipping would rise to the 40% range. Sanitation is another matter best left to the lawyers, (who have already taken away my medium rare burgers at spots too numerous to mention, the cretinous devils). Thu Aug 16 13:14:28 -0700 2001 1546735 0 Mike Kilgore 1 1546829 I hate all those little packets too - particularly having to weed through the pink and the blue to find actual sugar - but I am in sympathy with the restauranteur here. Its both more economical for them and more sanitary (and I am no sanitation buff) If you put out a sugar bowl, people will put a wet spoon back into it. Yuck. They do it all the time at our church coffee hour. Unwrapped butter or stick butter simply becomes a mess - and the unused portion can not be re-served. With jams you see the same issue as the sugar. Crumbs and stuff gets into the jam, and maybe someone will lick the spoon. and there is potential enormous waste, if unused individually served portions have to be thrown away. Individual packets of syrup, catsup etc. save the filling of messy, sticky bottles. So, as unattractive as all these things are I can understand them in average restaurantsand forgive. Makes no sense then that Im peeved and miserable when I get those little ultrapasteurized half-and-half or worse nondairy creamer thingees to put in my coffee instead of a pitcher of milk, does it? Thu Aug 16 17:06:39 -0700 2001 1546735 0 jen kalb 2 1546836 "Makes no sense then that Im peeved and miserable when I get those little ultrapasteurized half-and-half or worse nondairy creamer thingees to put in my coffee instead of a pitcher of milk, does it?" Sure it does--the stuff in the other packets is at least real! Thu Aug 16 17:44:51 -0700 2001 1546829 0 Caitlin McGrath 1 1546879 I'm a natural fidgeter, so the little packets often afford me hours of amusement at the table -but things have gone too far with the "pour-shun pac" packaging of everything. I thought I had it bad when I ordered hot tea and got both honey and lemon juice in the plastic envolopes, but HOLLANDAISE?!? Signs of the apocolypse... Fri Aug 17 15:53:46 -0700 2001 1546735 0 Shmingrid