PROCESSED FOODS, CONVENIENCE FOODS

It has been rightly said successful catering is a matter of finding and maintaining a delicate balance between quality and cost. Meats, vegetables, and to a lesser extent fruits, are the basis of most caterers bulk buying. Such items are naturally a matter of supply and demand; costs can soar overnight .

Easy to handle and store, reliable as to quality, always at the same price, canned goods have become one of the caterer’s best assets.

Each variety of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish must be prepared in the manner best suited to its particular qualities. Peas must be picked very tender, shelled, graded for size, and washed; cherries are pitted, peaches peeled by special processes; pineapples have their skins removed, then are cut into slices or cubes; apples are pared, cored and sliced by machinery. Canning has now become a safe process, and the industry offers a variety of healthy foods which have their place every caterer’s store room.

But the highest peak man has attained in the long search for perfection in this particular domain is undoubtedly quick-freezing. Many caterers have reached the conclusion that the one answer to their budgetary problem is to substitute quick-frozen meat, fish and vegetables for the traditional market-bought produce. The advantages of quick frozen foods – Q.F.F. for short – are quite simply that quality is controlled in a factory by the most scientific methods, which no catering kitchen could equal; prices remain stable whatever the season of the year, and now, with the new methods of freezing, quick-frozen foods are easier to portion than ever before. This does not mean, of course, that fresh vegetables will never be served. During these seasons of the year when market produce is cheap and plentiful, it is obviously sensible to include them on the menu, but it is only in the cheap season that they come within the average catering budget.

In the United States, nearly all chefs are in favour of Q.F.F., which ensure an almost complete elimination of kitchen preparatory work. The usual routine of normal preparation such as fish filleting, vegetable washing, peeling and trimming is non-existent, and the labour force of the kitchen can be reduced accordingly.

Cooking times for quick-frozen foods are normally the same as for fresh food, the final presentation is similar and the traditional garnishing can be retained. For the caterer who does not employ the qualified personnel needed for the preparation of some high-class items, a new range of haute-cuisine quick-frozen foods has become available.

What will the future developments in frozen foods be? So far, most food manufacturers have confined their efforts in research and development to the welfare catering field. However, top class restaurants and hotels must in some way reduce their labour costs, or they will either price themselves out of the market or be charging uneconomic prices. It is obvious that, in a top class restaurant, one will not be able to dispense with traditional methods of service, but nevertheless some of the basic work can be eliminated from the kitchen. One can therefore expect a huge increase of prepared foods of all types in all catering establishments.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1183