"food prep" news and stories

When I'm in the kitchen, my cutting board is one of my best friends. I use a large, sharp knife and quickly (but carefully) chop my way through my onions, celery, potatoes or peppers. However, I have a good friend who prefers to ignore the cutting board for everything of the large job, instead using her fingers and a small paring knife to make fruit slices, potato wedges and carrot rings.

I tend to think of that 'in hand' slicing as a kitchen technique that comes from an earlier era. I can imagine my Auntie Tunkel standing in her tiny rowhouse kitchen, slicing root vegetables directly into a roasting pan, using a callused thumb to catch the blade on the other side of the turnip or rutabaga. My own mother is somewhere in between, having used the same old cutting board for so many years that she's worn it thin in the middle, nothing like my own hurried smash and chop.

Are you a cutting board devotee or an in hand slicer?

In home kitchens, cooks have been known to complain about the height of the countertops. If they're too high or too low, you back can hurt after working away for only an hour or two. Imagine, if you will, that you have to work at that uncomfortable counter for hours on end and that will give you a sense of the discomfort that some professional cooks and bakers can feel when they have to work in a kitchen that isn't scaled to suit them.

It is unrealistic to assume that every kitchen can accommodate every chef, or that kitchens must all be custom-built just in case there is both a 5'1" and 6'2" employee working in the same space. The cost would simply be too great. Consequently, kitchens are built to the same standards (33"-36"). Two University of Wisconsin-Stout researchers invented a mobile, adjustable-height kitchen cooktop (with an induction burner) and food prep table that can help make work easier for cooks and still affordable for restaurants. The researchers who invented the cooking table specialize in injury and rehabilitation. They say that the optimal height for a cooking work surface is two inches below the elbow. Working at the correct height can prevent injury and improve efficiency. The tables can range in height from 27"-47," heights that should accommodate 90% of the population. The best part is that the tables adjust automatically at the touch of a button, meaning that the tables remain flat and there is no need to clear off works-in-progress to adjust them.

For now, the patent-pending tables will be aimed at the commercial sector, but there are clearly applications in the private sector, as well.  

[Image Dunn Country News]

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