The darndest things turn up in the letterbox sometimes. Such as this 16-page catalogue of equipment and consumables for catering businesses. They are industrial supplies, which is surprising given that, in all my culinary endeavours, I rarely have need for a twin deck pizza oven or a sous vide bath (unstirred – whatever that means).
That’s not to say the catalogue is without interest, even for someone whose basic requirements extend no further than a saucepan and a can opener.
For instance, I never knew that knives and chopping boards could be colour-coded according to what they are used to chop. How do chefs manage to remember such details in the hurly-burly of kitchen prep? In fact it’s quite easy and logical: red for meat, white for dairy, blue for seafood (the sea, see?), yellow for poultry (what a yolk), green for veggies and brown for cooked meat (well-done presumably). Neat eh, although I’m not sure where tofu fits into this scheme.
Then there’s the chafing dish fuel. I had no idea what a chafing dish might be, apart from perhaps being something that might involve constant rubbing. And why would it need fuel to do that? But it turns out that chafing dishes have a long and venerable history. Who knew? From such nuggets of knowledge are crossword clues born (and solved).
I’m still not enthusiastic though about publications being named after what they are – in this case Bulletin – rather than what they are about. It just seems like laziness to me, a lack of seriousness and effort to come up with a suitably descriptive moniker. All it takes is half an hour’s brainstorming down the pub. How about The Cater-logue? Kitchen Chronicle? Hospitality Herald? Anything would be more memorable than just Bulletin surely?
