Overzealous bean counting leads to insanity

Keeping track of your food costs is, of course, a good thing. But be mindful of concentrating too much on price-per-pound or percentages.

Every once in a while I throw a temper tantrum, and after 30-odd years in this kitchen business I have, by God, earned it. I don’t keep a flask in my top drawer, I don’t seduce the help, and I don’t chop exotic powders on the tops of toilet tanks, so I think being permitted an occasional apoplectic fit is no less than I deserve.

Particularly when it’s not aimed at cooks. I tend to be fairly forgiving of the foibles of my comrades-in-houndstooth, having outlived a foible or two of my own. And the screw-ups of purveyors—it’s not like my fish guy never had to load 15 pounds of skate in his car and drive it over because I forgot to order it. As long as neither of us screwed up too regularly, each of us would bail the other out (It’s a relationship business, remember? This is why too much concentration on price per pound is not a great idea, and why all those companies at the 2001 NRA show—who were going to put us all online and empower us to buy three tins of anchovies at the lowest possible price by comparing prices from 97 vendors worldwide who were just aching for our business—were gone by the 2002 show). There are times, of course, when someone performs a feat of such spectacular boneheadedness that a certain amount of objective commentary is necessary, but I’ve found that a quiet, strangler-in-the-dark sort of delivery has worked best for me.

So, whence come the eruptions? I suppose they’re from the foodservice gods in general, or what my dear Daddy calls the “perversity of nature.” My latest (a mild one, admittedly) was from a product ad that appeared in my inbox for frozen sweet-potato French fries—something I was searching desperately for seven years ago. I had even called the North Carolina Sweet Potato Council—yeah, there really is one; are you surprised?—and the lady said it was a real good idea and no, there weren’t any on the market that she knew of, but, you know, it’s a popular thing to do at high-end restaurants, all you do is cut them, soak them, drythemblanchthemchillthem—

A-hem. I explained that I was aware of the process; this client was in an airport, and square footage cost more than fingernail polish for a six-armed goddess. No blanchy nothing, savvee? So off the menu it went, and now I’m grumbling that it wasn’t there when I needed it and that I wasn’t bright enough to patent the process myself.

But I’m convinced that the foodservice gods are not actively malicious, just bored and a little too willing to indulge a sick sense of humor. Most cooks understand that there is always an unseen Presence lounging around and waiting for some fool to express optimism about the coming evening, so it can direct three busloads of blue-haired gamblers to the front door.

Much worse are the unreasoning acolytes of these foodservice gods, whose pagan rituals seem to have some weird primitive force behind them. It’s all show, trust me. How often have you heard that food cost has to hit an exact percentage target or the world will end? That labor needs to drop half a point or we’ll all have to build an ark? Feathers, drums, smoke, the shaking of rattles and the whirring of adding machines. I’ve lost count of the times that these zealots have caught me in a dark corner of a restaurant, armed with a menu, a clipboard and a calculator, and tried to convert me at the point of a pencil. And when that failed, they’d sneak back to their offices and overprice something that I had put on the menu to reduce labor—because the food cost was too high.

If food and labor on a given item add up to 60 percent or less, it’s making you money or you’re a dope. And the proportions don’t matter. Food cost, 50 percent, labor nothing? I’ll take that any time, the idolatry of some heathen accountants notwithstanding. There’s a place for reason and a place for religion; I’d put numbers in the reason camp. Religion becomes appropriate when you’re praying for business. When the voodoo begins to move toward your balance sheet, it’s time to pitch a fit.