Friday, May 13, 2016

The Trail

We got lucky - 3 days up at Munsee with no rain!  We also prepared 10 lbs. of baked ziti, 8 cakes, 15 lbs. of Alaska burgers, and an obscene amount of hot dogs.

What did you find challenging about cooking in such large quantities?  Were you surprised by anything?  Considering that catering operations have to deal in even larger quantities, is that something that seems fun to you or a huge pain?

Please comment on the previous questions, and add your overall reflection about your time cooking for the backpacking staff.


8 comments:

  1. After having an enjoyable couple days on the trail, the cooking experience helped me understand the intense and fragile work of producing large portions. The most difficult task was cutting onions while trying to prevent a wave of tears from falling down my face. Also the rush of chopping and dicing large amounts of food, at times, felt exhilarating. I enjoyed the time spent together in the wilderness while cooking alongside brilliant people. I was surprised by how much amusement I received from this trip and how important it is to continually clean your station and dishes. The countless hours of preparing and creating delectable dishes was truly worth the time. At the end of the day when everyone gathered inside the dining hall it was an exciting and proud sensation to know that you and your team created a delicious meal for dozens of people to eat.

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  2. As we cooked for the backpacking staff, the biggest concern that ran through my mind was that a lot of people may not enjoy or appreciate the hard work we put into cooking for them. However, to my surprise, I did not hear any complaints about the food at all. In fact, everyone I asked said that the food was really good! Although I enjoyed the experience and company of cooking in such large quantities, I do not believe this is something I would like to do over and over again. I would rather cook in smaller portions because it is easier and quicker. Overall, cooking for the backpacking staff was truly a memorable experience that I will not forget. The dishes I enjoyed the most were the Alaskan burgers as well as the Pound Cake with pineapple and vanilla.

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  3. Cooking on the trail meant cooking in large quantities and what I found challenging about that was how much work we had to accomplish in a short time frame. Thankfully we have an efficient team or else we would have spent hours doing simple tasks. To me, cooking in large quantities is fun when you have the right company because time flies and the work becomes more enjoyable. I would choose not to cook in large quantities if my team isn't having a good time about it. Overall my cooking experience for the trail will never be forgotten. I thought it was going to be a slow and boring trip but I actually ended up wishing that I could have stayed longer.

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  4. The trail teaches us young ones a lot, but cooking for the staff of the trail also gave us little lessons. A lesson that I was taught was that you can’t please everyone, so what you cooked is what the people have to live with. This kind of put a lot of pressure because you didn’t want to serve anything bad knowing that the trail instructors were only eating our food or nothing. Though, this challenge was not difficult because we worked well together and preparing the large quantities of food. The only real difficult thing about cooking large quantities was that it took forever to make things boil. I can’t really say I was surprised by anything but catering and cooking with people that you normally spend about two classes with didn’t make things a huge pain but actually fun.

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  5. I learned a lot of things about cooking for large amounts of people. The main challenge for me was the sheer amount of time to both prepare and cook the food. What surprised me was how easy it is to cook- the process was quantitative not qualitative. I found it boring because it was very tedious. I also found the lack of nuance compared to smaller scale cooking to be interesting.

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  6. The most challenging part, in my opinion, was making sure the food wasn't cold. We were really good at making sure people got their food hot. especially Mrs. Tuorto communicating to find out where the freshman were at. Although we cooked for many people it was easier than I guessed it would be. We had sort of an assembly line with our own jobs. We got everything done and prepared before the freshman arrived. For example the 10 pounds of ziti were all cooked in one pot it wasnt such a huge process, its just more quantity. It was fun, we were all in the kitchen and we listened to music and talked to one another as we did our jobs. Time flew by.

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  7. Despite having to prepare large quantities of food for people, I enjoyed it. The hardest thing to me was waiting for hours for the water to boil for the pasta, and the hotdogs that we cooked. Another challenge I faced was the amount of dishes that I had to wash. I was surprised about how fast the dishes piled up in the sink. Since all of the cooks were able to work well with each other it made it feel like I was cooking for a small amount of people. It was like we had to solve a large puzzle and everyone had a piece of it in order to put the puzzle together. I also enjoyed how the backpacking staff appreciated the food we prepared. This experience allowed me to see how professionals have to prepare large amounts of food in a small amount of time. Unlike some chefs who feel under pressure when cooking for other I really enjoyed this experience and I would love to do it again.

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  8. I have cooked for the house before so cooking for the 50+ people on the trail was not that much of a challenge, because there was less people and because there was help. I liked how we all had different jobs and when our jobs were done we put them all together for the finished product. Also I loved how we had music on the whole time, I liked how we made cooking fun with the music.

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