SCIENCE STEPS INTO THE KITCHEN

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 5

SCIENCE STEPS INTO THE KITCHEN

The galley of a modern luxury liner shows how modern efficiency methods make the most of man and machine.

'J’HE up-to-date business man’s

maxim of more work for less effort has rapidly spread to the kitchen, where the modern housewife is wise enough to take a hint from her husband. She finds that not only mechanical labour-saving devices spare her old-time drudgery. Just as important are the systematic control of •» work and the lay-out of the kitchen—cupboards, oven and. sink. The old idea of “muddling along,” once so dear to the heart of every child of Britain, has now gone by the board. Efficiency is the cry to-day. Few things can better prove to a woman the benefits of efficiency than the inside of a modern' ship’s galley. Wander through that of the new transTasman express steamer Awatea and you will be impressed at once by the wonderful economy of space. The galley is only. 70 feet wide by 60 feet long—the size possibly of 30 ordinary home kitchens —yet here 23 men work from six o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night preparing three square meals and oddments for 700 people.

There is no confusion, no fuss. Each man has his appointed task, his appointed '.territory, and he never encroaches upon anyone else. One of the second cooks is in charge of the entrees and sauces,’ another specialises in soups and garnishes. A third man is responsible for all the fried dishes, a fourth for the grills and joints, a fifth for the cold larder, a sixth for the vegetables, and so on. Even when the ship was in port in Wellington and hundreds of interested visitors streamed through her galley, the cooks went on steadily with their work, very little worried by the jostling crowds. Just as punctually as at sea, the huge quantities of food were received, prepared and cooked into elaborate special luncheons and dinners.

At first sight it seems incredible that dainty dishes can be made In this “mass production meal factory.” Mothers of large families generally take the view that the frills of cookery are not for them. They specialise in “plain, homely food,” with perhaps something particularly enticing on Sunday. But after seeing the Awatea cooks at work one realises that quantity of food need not mean either dullness of menu or lack of variety in serving. If it is possible for 23 .men in a narrow ship’s galley to provide for 700 people meals that rival the best hotel fare, then’ft ’should be possible for the house cook who has 10 or 12 mouths to feed to strike out in all sorts of directions which so far she has thought quite impractical. It requires only logical planning of work and a little originality. In form, the Awatea galley consists of the kitchen proper,and several small compartments opening into it. The kitchen is divided by three wide benches running' parallel across' if. Against the baek wall are the huge stock pots, the vegetable ovens, a water boiler and an incinerator. In front of them and forming the first bench is the great electric range, 15 feet long, doublesided, with five ovens on each side and grillers at one end. Hams are cooked nearby in a fuelless oven which Is

heated to 210 degrees before the hams go in, then left for several hours. The second bench is used, by the cooks for the actual preparation of the food, and the third bench is the first-class service pantry. The tourist class servery is in a separate compartment at the far end of the kitchen. Both are similar in plan to the ordinary cafeteria, so that the stewards can move from end to end and quickly collect their orders. The electric hot press, which forms the servery bench is, however, a simple method of keeping everything hot that is often not found in cafeterias.

When meals are ready to be served, hinged metal plates swing down from the ceiling and transform the pantry into a room apart from the kitchen at the back. The line of stewards pass through it in single file, some taking food from the benches, some drawing coffee from urns on the opposite side. As they leave the pantry they pass between the fruit room and the bar. The chief feature of the kitchen proper, apart from its cleanliness, is its apparent bareness. The number of pots and pans have been reduced to a working minimum and there is none of the clutter of unwanted utensils that is inevitable in the average kitchen. There is no place for drones in the Awatea galley, whether the drones be metal or human. ’ Under the cooks’ bench are small tins of ingredients which are replenished daily from the ship’s stores. Large quantities are not kept in the galley, because they would hinder work. Here is another hint for the morq use of a store cupboard for bulk ingredients. It will save time in the long run.

In the compartments adjoining the kitchen most of the humdrum tasks of cooking are carried out In the butcher’s shop four men are employed in cutting the joints and the steaks, plucking the poultry and filleting the fish. About 20001 b. of provisions are sent up daily from the refrigerator through a hatchway. Near the shop is the vegetable-cleaning room, where the preparing gang numbers three or four men. Other compartments include the pot-washing room, the scullery, the cold storage pantry, crockery scullery, glass room, silver and cutlery room.

But most fascinating of all is the bakery, a narrow section that cannot be more than a dozen feet wide by two dozen feet long. Nevertheless, here are signed all the little flourishes that make cooking an exciting art “Appetite is through the eye,” says the chief baker. “Food may be good food and yet not look attractive. Something not quite as good will be more palatable if it is dressed well and daintily served. A dab of cream there, a leaf here, a cherry somewhere else, these things make all the difference to the appearance of a distf. Never make the mistake of saving time on the final touches. It is appearance that counts, much more than some people believe.” This wise philosophy governs the whole of the. bakery activities. The man who works at the two electric brick ovens all night, making the bread and the rolls, produces loaves with crust and texture that the best city baker would be proud to own. The rolls are made in three different moulds —bun-shape for breakfast, finger rolls for lunch, and twists for din-

ner. All come of the same mixture, but they taste different. The other three who work in the bakery take charge of the pastry, cakes and confectionery, as well as many of the savouries and sweets. They have to be men of varied experience in their trade. The chief has his own recipes and does most of the trimmings. One of his favourite sweets is Sefton Tangerine, which he suggested as a suitable dish for the home because it is so simple to make and so delicious to eat. He takes oranges and cuts off the top just as you would slice the top off a boiled egg. He scoops out the flesh until the inner skin of the orange is perfectly clean. The juice is squeezed through a sieve and half set with jelly crystals. A little cream is added to it, and the mixture whisked to a foamy consistency and poured into the cleaned orange eases. After it has set in the larder the baker pixies it with whipped cream and puts on it a basket handle of angelica. Another sweet that will figure on the Awatea menu is Dutch Flummery, which is simply half-set jelly whipped until it is thick and flavoured with gin. Meals on the Awatea are prepared and served in remarkably short time. Nor is that all due to the staff. The galley is fitted with numerous electric labour-saving devices that considerably lighten routine work. Plates are cleaned by the simple process of putting them on a rack in a metal cabinet through which pass streams of hot water. In the vegetable-cleaning room is a potato xieeler that can hold 561 b. of potatoes at one time. It peels by churning them against a roughened

surface, which scrapes off the skin, leaving the preparing gang only the job of taking out the eyes and any patches of decay. When you remember that the Awatea passengers and crew will eat a ton of x>otatoes a day, you can appreciate the time and tedi; ous labour that the peeler saves. In the bakery apples are peeled and cored by a machine that runs a razor edge over their surface.

Other appliances that are friends indeed to the ship’s cook are the mixers. The small ones Consist of a metal bowl in which a perforated metal beater revolves with a curious handlike action. The dough mixer, too, copies man. Its curved steel bars move in the heavy dough like two giant baker’s arms.

Other useful gadgets include automatic egg-boilers, egg-beaters, breadcutting, bacon-cutting and mincing machines, a breadcrumb xxnmder. Making toast is easy. You place the bread on a revolving rack and in a few seconds out it comes at the bottom, beautifully browned on both sides. But mechanical aids, no matter how ingenious, are useless without the guiding hand of man. From the chef in his tall hat to the junior sculleryman among his dishes, the galley staff of the Awatea know their work thoroughly. They tackle it directly, confidently, without any of the poking and testing of the woman who asks herself nervously, “Will he like it? Will this be a success? Is it too much salt or not enough vinegar?” You would imagine these cooks must be very hard to please when they get back to their wives ashore. But evidently they are not To the question: “Do you interfere in the kitchen when you go home?” ttfe answer was unanimous. “Not us I We don’t knock off work to carry bricks. We leave the cooking to the women and take a rest, enjoy ourselves. No kitchen is the best part of our holiday.’’