Restaurants in the Kuwaiti town of Hawally were unpleasantly surprised by a police inspection earlier this month, including a bakery with bread dough stored in the toilet and bathtub to keep it moist. This story is shocking on so many levels. First of all, who knew Kuwait had a health code? And indoor plumbing? And bread?
In addition to improper dough storage, police noted that the baker’s health card and butter had both expired some time ago, and consequently the proprietor was fined and the store shut down. A column in the Kuwait Times acknowledged the relatively light punishment:
There are some good clean restaurants, bakeries and sweet shops out there but if what we saw occurred in a European country, a case would be filed against the bakery for millions of euros. [Source]
It is of course true that standards are higher in western countries. For example, here in the United States, I know from personal experience that Toilet Bread is usually discounted and heavily perfumed.
In other bakery crime news…
Masaaki Matsubayashi, a 56-year-old employee of Japan’s Shikishima Baking Company, spent the past 16 years stealing millions of dollars from company insurance policies he was hired to manage. He will spend the next 11 years in prison, fondly recalling the luxurious lifestyle and 17 mistresses he supported with the embezzled funds. He never felt guilty, he says, because he regarded the 7,000 insurance policy-holders as “sponsors who put up allowances for my mistresses.”