Making arrangements for a salad (Sept. 3)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
We are a nation that will always describe a job in terms more grandiose than the job itself.
I remember a time when janitors were called just that — janitors. But now many of them are called maintenance personnel, sanitation technicians, cleanliness engineers. However, I never thought anything was wrong about describing janitors as janitors. They do necessary and important work, keeping our workplaces, and in some cases the places where we live, clean. Let’s hear it for janitors.
And let’s also hear it for prep cooks. Prep cooks aren’t chefs, but they make it possible for chefs to run their restaurants. Prep cooks keep the kitchen clean. They also chop foods, prepare ingredients for use in dishes the chefs prepare, and in some restaurants they also make sure the coolers and freezers are stocked, that the stoves are working, that the hot trays are hot enough and the cold trays are cold enough. They also make salads.
At least, they used to.
Now, in at least one San Francisco cooking school, prep cooks are becoming salad arrangers. They are learning to put the salad ingredients on the plate artistically, and make the salad look like a little work of art.
I don’t know about you, but I think that might be going a little too far in the hoity-toity department. You can spend a lot of time arranging a salad, but when you get it done, somebody is just going to wolf it down. The customer won’t care if the tomatoes are positioned just so on the plate. He or she will stick a fork in them, and in the lettuce, and maybe in the olives and onions on the plate, and stir them around a bit before eating, and that will be it for the arrangement on the plate.
I’m of the old school. I’m a believer in salad that has been tossed, and in lettuce that isn’t in pieces so big you have to cut them before you can get them into your mouth. Otherwise, you will be dropping bits of your salad on the floor, making work for — you guessed it — the janitors.
