Kevin Venzke wrote:
>
> I'm wondering what equipment one would expect to find in the kitchen
> for a cafeteria that serves a wide variety of dishes, but not necessarily
> at the same time. For example: a university diner for dormitory residents
> which offers a small selection of main dishes and sides per meal, which
> changes or cycles every day.
>
> I don't know much about this subject and actually can't imagine how
> this kind of cafeteria is possible without simply reheating something
> frozen and bought in bulk. I've worked in fast food restaurants, but
> there always the *same* dishes are offered every day, so that both
> the equipment and the employees need only be able to make a few
> items.

Commissary style cooking is nothing like fast food, in fact it's not
like any kind of restaurant... it's much more like home cooking only
very high-tech sophisticated... and most everything is prepared from
scratch, much moreso than is typically done at home. The equipment
used is very different, not only that it's larger, it is actually
totally different. Upon entering a commissary kitchen the first thing
you'll wonder is where are all the stoves/cooktops... well, there
aren't any, no pots or pans either... instead there're banks of huge
steam jacketed kettles, ranging anywhere from 60 qt to 160 qt, capable
of when filled to capacity with liquid bringing it to a rolling boil in
perhaps six minutes. Instead of pans there are banks of oversized
griddles, where someone running 4-5-6 at a time can easily prepare 300
portions of eggs-any-style w/homefries, burgers, steaks, grilled
cheese, etc.... commissary style cooking is extremely fast... hundreds,
thousands need to be fed within the same time period as feeding one.
There are banks of high recovery/capacity deep fryers, many banks of
oversized pizza parlor type ovens, banks of automatic slicing machines,
many stand mixers that can handle 60, 100, 120 quarts, there are
separate rooms just for preparing vegetables, containing highly
specialized, high capacity vegetable prep machines, that can
automatically pare, slice, dice, shred, etc. There are all sorts of
high capacity specialized machines, such as automatic continuous bread
slicers/toasters There'll be a separate bake shop too, perhaps a
separate butcher shop also. And of course there'll be huge storage
facilities, including many large walk-in fridges/freezers. Menus are
prepared for a month at a time, everything operates efficiently and
smoothly.

Sheldon