Let us now visit a different type of large, complex operation—a hospital kitchen serving about 3000 meals a day.
One is at once struck by its germ-free cleanliness (again this is a real operation). Not only does it look and feel clean, but also clues to the significance of sanitation are everywhere. The storeroom is filled with supplies of paper dishes: using them avoids the handling of china and glass, with all its risks for contamination. An entire room is devoted to hosing down and sanitizing the carts on which dirty trays have been stacked. The aides who dish out the food wear plastic gloves.
This kitchen is in many ways a simpler version of the hotel kitchen. There are three production stations—hot foods, salads, and baking—each having its own special equipment and storage areas and its own staff. Much of the equipment is like the hotels, and so is the staff organization—at least on the production level. The two kitchens even have some of the same problems to solve: both, for example, must deliver hot and cold foods to distant serving places.
Most of the variances in the two kitchens come from a single important element that shapes every food-service operation: the clientele. In the hospital the food is prepared primarily for people who are ill. In the hotel it is prepared primarily for out-of-town visitors with money to spend or for people celebrating a special occasion. The difference means two very different kinds of menus.
In the hospital kitchen nutrition and diet therapy are primary concerns. Meals are care-fully planned to provide a balanced diet. In addition there are several versions of the patient menu to fit special needs—a liquid diet, a low-fat diet, a low-sodium diet, a children's diet, and so on. Since the right food is part of making the patient well, the kitchen works closely with the medical staff. Unchanging recipes are scrupulously followed. Doctors' orders are carried out to the letter.
Since patients in a hospital eat all their meals there day after day, the menu changes daily. Contrast this with the hotel menu, where the offerings are the same every day. The hospital cook's assignments will change daily; the hotel cook will regularly make the same things every day.
On the production level it is similar to that of the hotel kitchen. There is a production supervisor, and skilled cooks head the stations, assisted by workers with varying degrees of skill. The skills required of the station heads include the ability to follow a fixed recipe to produce a quality product and the capacity to supervise the workers on the station.
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