The first impression is that of quantity. Cartons piled to the roof, boxes and cases of rare spices and sauces which barely put in their appearance in the family larder all fill the eye. Then gradually a few details become clear. There is a distinct impression of a close trinity of material--tile, wood, and iron. Tile walls and floor glistening white view with wetly scrubbed tables marked by the deep scars of many knives, while both stand in contrast to the sombre mass of iron stoves and pots, worn, rubbed and fiercely hot.
One room is devoted to the preparation of potatoes with its washing bins and automatic peeler; this opens into a room where cooks are stuffing chickens by the dozens. The main cooking room is lined on one side with a row of massive ranges, and on another side a row of six stock pots simmer and boil. In the center hang great copper kettles and ladles glistening in the moist warmth while chefs feverishly prepare the evening meal on the tables below.
Each room seems to lead into another, and such a chance encounter leads the observer into the strange ice room where a score or so 100 pound cakes of ice are being manufactured for use in the kitchens. Another door leads you behind the scenes at the Eliot House Grille, still one of the most popular eating spots for the Harvard student. All the food and help at the Grille are provided by the University.
The frequent shift in personnel behind the counter of the Grille is one of the few indications the undergraduate has of the manpower crisis within the University. All the staff for the kitchens and the dining halls are provided through the Personnel Office which is hard put to find the skilled labor.
Maze of Tunnels
A short corridor and another door leads the visitor suddenly out into the great system of food tunnels. Heavy foods like roasts and great quantities of vegetables are prepared in the large kitchen and trundled through the tunnels in covered cars which have been electrically preheated. Light foods and breakfasts are prepared in the serving kitchens of each House. Since the distance from Kirkland to the farthest dining hall, Leverett, is 1800 feet, provisions have been made so that Leverett alone of the five Houses can be made self-sufficient in preparation of food.
The tunnels themselves are fairly high and well lighted, and even the most staid observer would be forgiven a pardonable desire to be turned loose here underground with a Jeep. Only the passage of a occasional food cart breaks the cool silence of the tunnels, although several hundred unwitting students may be tramping overhead.
Five to six hundred leaves of all kinds of bread must be provided daily for the whole University by the College Bakery located under Eliot next to the College Kitchens. Here also is prepared all the plain and fancy pastries which appear on the tables in the dining halls, cookies, pies, rolls, and many fancy desserts.
The air of the large bakery rooms is scented with the smell of warm bread, which pops and crackles invitingly in its great wire racks. Near the entrance looms a massive mixer, easily twice the height of the average man. Flour and other ingredients are sifted into a great mixing tub from a high funnel-shaped inlet and then kneaded by long-armed paddles.
World of Pastry
In another corner of the room, smaller mixers five and six feet high whirl wire beaters the size of a man's head in bowls of frosting or small lots of dough. All about the room stand frames filled with trays of bread, pies, and a thousand different kinds of cookies.
Once that the dough for bread has been prepared it is removed to the "profing room" where it sits in great tubs to rise. Steam jets keep the air of the room warm and moist for the difficult and delicate process. Leaves are prepared for the even either by rough shaping as in the case of French bread or by placing in pans; rolls are cut to size on a special machine.
Great baking ovens occupy one side of the room. Reaching the ceiling, their great tile fronts seem to glower over the whole room. They are heated to a tremendous temperature by gas jets, and when they are opened, the narrow tile inner ovens are incandescant with heat. "Peel poles" 12 to 14 feet in length with wooden paddles on one end are the agents for placing leaves in and removing them from the ovens. In the baking of French bread the crowning touch is the use of steam jets on the hot loaves to produce a perfect crust.
The existence of this bakery is testimony to a standing principle of the University food system--to prepare as much of the food as possible on the premises. Except for obviously specialized foods the only commodity which is not prepared by the food system is ice cream, which is bought outside. Already the government edict on this delicacy has made itself felt in the dining halls.
Uncertain of the status of the student body which it has been created to serve, and plagued by new problems of war-time shortages, the University food system carries on. The task has always been great: it is now larger than ever. As long as is humanly possible the system will try to maintain its standards of giving the student the best to be had for the price paid, but patience, sacrifice, and above all, understanding, will help to make the burden lighter.