5
Employes Prepare 5^000 Meals Daily
This is the first in a series of articles on
"silent services" at the Medical Center.
This month we feature the dietetics de
partment, 185 people without whom the
Medical Center couldn't operate. In the
months to come, we will print articles on
messenger service, housekeeping, the tele
phone switchboard, and many other be-
hind-the-scenes departments at Duke. If
you have a suggestion for a silent service
story for Intercom, please let us know
at extension 4148 or drop a note to
Box 3354.
When the cooks in the hospital kitchen
say they're going to fix macaroni and
cheese for lunch, they really mean it.
The 100 quarts of macaroni and cheese
they prepare for one meal would serve a
family of five every night for nearly four
months.
Yet just a portion of the patients and
employes who eat at the hospital can and
do finish off the maxi-recipe in one meal.
With a daily grocery bill that runs into
thousands of dollars, dietetics is one of
the largest backstage departments at the
Medical Center. Nearly 185 employes
cook and serve 5,000 meals each day,
more than 1.8 million in a year.
Macaroni and cheese is just one of the
hundreds of main dishes, soups, salads,
vegetables, breads and desserts that food
service workers at the Medical Center pre--
pare. Their appetite-tempting results are
served to patients in their rooms, in the
patient cafeteria on the third floor, and in
the personnel cafeteria.
Home base for the department is a
large, ground-floor kitchen with Paul
Bunyan-sized equipment. Soups are stir-
r^ in gigantic vats with metal utensils
that resemble canoe paddles. The ovens
bake dozens of pies and thousands of
cookies each day. Salads are tossed in
steel bowls the size of laundry tubs.
From the main kitchen, much of the
food for patient meals is transferred to
two "tray units" where food service
workers dish out portions and arrange
courses on trays for delivery to patients'
bedsides.
In addition to providing well-balanced
standard meals for many of Duke's pa
tients and employes, dietetics prepares
special diets for several hundred patients
each day.
The department stocks salt-free cheese,
butter and other items to give a more
attractive menu selection to patients who
must limit salt intake. Dietitians also
have developed a number of especially
appetizing dishes which fit into all-liquid,
soft, or any of the other restricted diets.
"We try to serve patients the most
appealing meals possible within their diet
restrictions," Robert Jobin, food pro
duction manager, said.
"The requests we are called upon to
fill often times include foods that we do
not normally stock," Jobin said, "but the
unusual is accomplished right away while
the impossible takes a little longer."
Medical center bakers add an extra
touch when a patient has a birthday,
creating.a miniature decorated birthday
cake to be served along with his evening
meal. On a normal day, the bakers will
prepare two to three such treats to de
light children and adults alike on hospital
wards.
Dietetics is also in the catering business
for other hospital departments. Requests
for everything from coffee to full meals
for several hundred guests are processed
by the department every week.
Department personnel take their bows
when a recently discharged patient writes
a note of appreciation for the good food
pr when an employe asks for the recipe
for a favorite cafeteria dish.
"Our employes like to know that the
meals they prepare are enjoyed by our
patients and employes," Jobin said.
SLICING A ROAST—Robert Hester
prepares individual servings of roast beef
for lunch at the hospital, (photo by Bill
Boyarsky)
IN THE DISH ROOM— Mrs. Mary
Winston pulls a serving tray from the
large dishwashing machine in the dietetics
department, (photo by Bill Boyarsky)
STIRRING THE STEW—Mrs. lola Massey of the dietetics department stirs a
giant pot of stew in the hospital's main kitchen on the ground floor, (photo by Bill
Boyarsky)