THE CHEF AND HIS MINIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7293, 4 January 1902, Page 2

THE CHEF AND HIS MINIONS.

lasido Vio-w of a Big Hotel's Kitchen. ; (Ainslee's Magaxine.) "For Ms services the chef of a big hotel 'mm receive 10,000dol a year, a- big salary for cooking, but by no means out of proportion to his value to the hotel. He is supreme an his workshop , the kitchens, '■which are largej. brilliantly lighted and scrupulously clean rooms, with 'hardly a suggestion im the air of broiling and baking and roasting and 1 frying that is going on all round. The chef, with sub-chefs oven ( the butcher shops, the soups, the entrees, tie roasts, the vegetables, the bakeshops and the pastries, and a hundred cooks are calling out orders dn French, for they are nearly all French or Swiss, and French is the language of the kitchen, as well as of the court whenever a good 1 cuisine is attempted, and 'bustling around in, them white caps and aprons, so irntent on their work that the intrusion of a stranger is not noticed. The waiters, in their black coats, -with their order cards and their trays, thread thedr way an and out among the cooks, each hurrying to fill his order, in the shortest possible time. It -is a finelf specialised kitchen, however, and all the scurrying back and forth and shrill calls in French for portions of many dishes seem confusing only for a moment. Then follows an appreciation of the wonderful system of the place that insures the higliest arb in cooking, of the men who do nothing but Toast al^ day with a knowledge of t?he exact number of minutes and even seconds requited to produce the best results, of others who juggle copper -skillets, and of others who fry and bake and carve and garnish, -and of the gardemaaiger where the portions of meat and' raw foods are prepared and dressed in readiness for the range. ! " Each cook attends only to the prepar-a---j tion of his own dishes, and as for the chef, he seldom cooks at all. He has an office of ; his ov.ti, where he keeps his memoranda, ■ his books and his sp\cial menus, and the secrets of his business. During the' rush hours his place is in the centre of the kitI chen, directing, watching, and when neces- '■ sary, admonishing. If several big" banquets

are in progress, making it necessary to send hundreds of portions of each dish to them at once, it is the chef's duty to see that these courses are sent up promptly, and to check off each one on the 'bulletin board at the time it is sent. When he goes off' duty one of his assistants takes his place. Besides the cooks there are a dozen mem and women who do nothing but peel potatotß, others who make toast, and still others who attend to the dish-washing machines. The butcher and his assistants have charge of the supplies of meats, some of which — for instance, 'beef — are kept in the big refrigerators, where the temperature never varies a degree for three months before serving. In strong contrast with the ddsbes they have been preparing is the comparatively simple dinner of the cooks themselves. As they sit at the long table in itheir white aprons and caps," before each one is placed a bottle of claret. They are the only employees to • whom the hotel serves wine. This is a ' right jealously guarded by the cooks, and, • they allege, made necessary by their work over 'hot ranges."