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Mass Production

K

Kaabi

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What's the secret behind mass producing food? I've seen caterers, in small groups, make huge amounts of food in a relatively short amount of time. What's the secret (if there is one)?
 
Pre-preparation is a huge part of it. I worked in college foodservice for 5 years and we fed several hundred people a day. You do as much as possible (chopping, assembling, whatever) ahead of time and then you can feed an army.
 
Yeah, it the lots of people involved in getting everything ready. I was watching WGN-Chicago Noon News today and they had a professional chef on that cooked 2 complete dinners in about 2 minutes.

Everything was cut and read to go, so all he did was talk and cook. Quite amazing but it did miss the preperation part.

I worked in a restaurant as a kid, and they had 4 people who came in at 7am and would cut everything up to have it ready to go for the chefs that arrived at 3 pm.
 
I've had restaurants and catered for years! PREP WORK! Hours of prep and some things can be made ahead. It's a heluva lot of work; you kick into high gear and you don't stop!
 
Oh and lots of utensils (mixing bowls, spatulas, etc.).
 
Hmm this is interesting. thanks for this info. I always wondered about this too :)
 
Mama Mangia said:
I've had restaurants and catered for years! PREP WORK! Hours of prep and some things can be made ahead. It's a heluva lot of work; you kick into high gear and you don't stop!
Click to expand...

I'm with Mamma. I worked in a restaurant as a kid, and the cooks cooked quick because everything was ready to go. The place served 400 people a night with 6 cooks, and 3 day prep people that chopped and cut everything up ready to go.

Oh, and I washed a lot of dishes :)
 
I once worked in a soup kitchen that served on the average 350-400 hundred people 5 days a week, and "Saint" Sister Elena, always had people on Monday, chop and mix up stuff, for Tuesday. And Tuesday people prepped for Wednesday, and so on. That's the only way that it worked. Those were some great times.
 
Oh I like that system, expatgirl! that's cooperation at its best there.
 
Pre-prep is absolutely the "secret". A real time saver. I'm an advocate of big batch and one a month cooking. I always add other items but I have a stash accumulated in the freezer for those days when I'm weary and just do not want to cook from scratch. Saves on the impulse take out orders too. :)
 
Our soup kitchen also had huge mixers, ovens, pots, etc. I learned a lot by working there---Sister Elena would place people where their skills were best utilized--I was in salads as I could chop large amounts in a short period of time (got that talent from watching all those cooking shows-ha!) and others were better at serving. The men did the washing and carrying heavy pans and the baking. It was a lot of fun and most of the people who came to our kitchen were quite nice and very appreciative (sadly we had many young children and mamas). We did have two police officers on hand to maintain order---they were 2 of the nicest guys around but tolerated no nonsense. It felt good helping out.
 
Wow, I didn't realize how much food could be made really fast. I'd always wondered about it though.
 
Definitely the prep! I often think how nice it would be to have all my ingredients measured, chopped, and waiting for me in little glass bowls to dump into the pan :). I need a sous chef.
 
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