WE COULDN'T resist a recent offer to take a guided tour of Harvard's central kitchen, located somewhere beneath Eliot and Kirkland Houses. Following Paul DuFour, assistant director of the kitchen, down a dizzying spiral staircase, we arrived somewhat disoriented in a maze of underground tunnels.

Electric carts roam the passageways, pulling metal food trucks to the five houses that are served by the central facilities--Eliot, Kirkland, Winthrop, Lowell and Leverett. We saw a red stripe and the words "A Bad Ouch" marking potential head-bumping points in the tunnel.

In the bakery we met Rocky Taurisano and saw two huge floor-to-ceiling rotary ovens. "These ovens were here when Eliot House was built," Taurisano instructed. "We're afraid to replace them--they might be structural." One by one he took cheese cake shells out of the oven. A junior on the tour started to steal a batch of chocolate cake, but the yard-long pan did not quite fit under his shirt and he replaced it undetected.

The bakers told us they make all the bread except the raisin bread for the five houses because the slicing machine can't cut through the shriveled grapes. Just before moving on, we glanced into a recipe box and hastily copied one card. Recipe for oatmeal muffins (makes 100 dozen) rolled oats  10 lbs. bread flour  20 lbs. cake flour  20 lbs. baking powder  3 lbs. sugar  10 lbs. salt  10 ounces eggs  5 quarts milk  20 quarts shortening  10 lbs.

In the meat preparation area, DuFour told us that over 19008-ounce steaks were sliced for steak night. Soup was cooking in 80 gallon vats on one side of the kitchen and trays of lasagna were piled ten high on the other side.

A little further on we found massive automatic sterilization equipment that looked like a room-size hot box for-washing pans and trays. We also heard that food from a test kitchen is sent to the freshman union for trial, but a quick check with Frank J. Weissbecker, associate director of food services, dispelled the guinea-pig theory.

The test kitchen operates at full steam during the summer when employees taste the food and make comments on the quality. The small test batches include current recipes, new concoctions, and recipes from other schools. "A spinache souffle we tried really flopped," head dietician Kay S. Lacoss said, but a chicken salad sandwich with melted cheese passed the test and was served for the first time last week.

The Crimson welcomes any correspondence from its readers, and attempts to publish the letters that it receives, space permitting. The Crimson does not publish anonymous letters, although under certain circumstances it will withhold the name of a correspondent at that person's request. Any letters purporting to represent the views of an undergraduate or other organization must bear the names of at least two officers of that organization, who can be contacted in advance to vouch for the validity of the communication.