But it was the kitchen, the powerhouse of this vast establishment,
which had the most interest. This domain, ruled by the temperamental
culinary genius, Hot Biscuit Slim, was as large as ten Ford plants and
as noisy as the Battle of Gettysburg. The utensils that hung on its
walls, from the steam-drive potato mashers and sleeve-valve, air-cooled
egg beaters to the big armorplate potato kettles, the bigger force-feed
batter mixers and the grandiose stew kettles, in which carcasses of
cattle floated about like chips in a mill pond when beef dinners were
being prepared--these polished utensils glittered even when the ranges
were smoking their worst at hot cake time.
Paul Bunyan had devised the monorail system for this kitchen, and
overhead cranes rattled about at all hours, carrying loads of dishes
from the Dishwashing Department to the Serving Department, loads of
vegetables and meats from the Supply Department to the Preparations
Department, and loads of dressed food from the Preparations Department
to the Finishing Department. The dishes were washed on a carriage like
the log carriages of modern sawmills. The head dishwashers jerked
levers that threw heaps of dirty dishes from the conveyor belts to the
carriage, then the carriage was shot forward until the dishes struck a
sharp-edged stream of soapy water that had dropped one hundred feet.
The clean dishes were bucked off on live rolls, and the head dishwasher
shot the carriage back for another load. Some of the clean dishes were
run through dry kilns, and others were piled for air-drying by Swede
dish-pilers, who wore leather aprons and mittens and could pile sixty
thousand dishes per pair in twelve hours.
A list of the marvels of Paul Bunyan’s kitchen would fill a book as
large as a dictionary. Elevators whirred between the kitchen and the
vegetable bins, and a wide subway held four tracks that led to the
fruit and vinegar cellars. A concrete chute carried the coffee grounds,
eggshells and other waste to the kitchen yard, and from morning till
night it roared like a millrace. Billy Puget, boss over the scraper
gang, often had to work his mules and men fourteen hours a day in order
to keep the kitchen yard cleaned of coffee grounds and eggshells.
Paul Bunyan’s loggers had little understanding of the tremendous
organization that was required for the operation of such an
establishment as the cookhouse. They thanked old Paul for feeding them
so well, and they agreed that Hot Biscuit Slim was a powerful good
cook. Less fortunate loggers of to-day think of Paul Bunyan’s camp life
as a dream of bliss, and they are sure that if they had been there they
would have worshiped Paul Bunyan. His own loggers, however, took the
cookhouse glories as a matter of course, and they never realized what
inventiveness, thought and effort were needed to give them such Sunday
dinners and such Sunday afternoon dreams and content.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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