Restaurant Kitchen Research Articles

Processed Modernity: Cooking Ingredients and the Materiality of Food

In this paper I examine the meanings and values articulated through the use of preserved and (ultra)processed foods in everyday cooking in Mérida, Yucatán. Most studies on the practices deployed in the kitchen have tended to focus on cooking instruments and appliances, as well as on the part played by cookbooks and other instruments in the reproduction of culinary knowledges and practices. In contrast, here I focus on the very ingredients used in by cooks, arguing that through their materiality and their aesthetics, cooking ingredients contribute to the objectification of local values. The choice of ingredients by one or another cook expresses values such as “modern” and cosmopolitan, and simultaneously support claims of “authenticity” and “tradition,” and thus are lived as constitutive of regional identity. The use of preserved and processed foods is a common practice in Yucatán’s domestic and restaurant kitchens, which, as elsewhere, has historical grounds. There have been in the city of Mérida, since the turn of the twentieth century, industrial plants making beer, cookies and crackers, vegetable oils, soda drinks, chili pepper sauces, and recados (different pastes of spices). More recently, local industries have begun to package local dishes to sell them frozen, canned or vacuum-packed in plastic containers. I argue that these ingredients are important in transforming the local taste of and for Yucatecan food, and that, as objects that receive and give meaning to regional culinary culture, they become an important locus for the discursive and praxis-based negotiations of local forms of “modernity.”

Job burnout is associated with poorer hand-washing behaviors among restaurant kitchen chefs: evidence from Jiangsu Province, China

ABSTRACT Inadequate hand-washing among chefs is a major contributor to outbreaks of foodborne illnesses originating in restaurants. Previous studies have found that mental health influences hygiene behaviors among food handlers, who have a high rate of job burnout. However, it is still unclear whether job burnout leads to restaurant kitchen chefs’ poor hand washing behaviors (HWBs). In this study, we interviewed 453 restaurant kitchen chefs in Jiangsu Province, China regarding job burnout and HWBs during the summer (July-August) of 2020. The aims were to investigate job burnout (an individual internal motivation factor), identify determinants of job burnout, and examine the association between job burnout and HWBs. Variance analysis, post hoc multiple comparisons, linear regression models, and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the response data. This study revealed that chef age and the scale of the restaurant were significantly and negatively associated with reduced professional efficacy. Combined cuisine and pastry chefs had a more positive perception of their own professional efficacy than the other kitchen chefs, whereas the incidence of exhaustion was significantly higher in pastry chefs than in cuisine chefs and kitchen hands. Reduced professional efficacy was significantly and negatively associated with HWBs for all chefs. To improve the level of hand hygiene among chefs, measures should be taken to enhance chefs’ professional efficacy. Furthermore, close attention should be paid to chefs in small-scale restaurants, younger chefs, cuisine chefs, pastry chefs, and kitchen hands.

Stress, anxiety and depression among gastronomes: association with workplace mobbing and work-family interaction.

The work in commercial restaurant kitchens is characterized by many labor´s demands and strict commands that can cause damage to the mental health of gastronomes. The aim of this study was to verify the presence of stress, anxiety, and depression among gastronomy workers and associate them with the presence of mobbing at work. Still, it sought to evaluate the work-family interference and test its mediating role in the relationship between mobbing and psychopathology indicators. This is an observational-analytical, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, in which 160 gastronomes participated (59.4% women), with an average age of 30.81 years. All answered a Sociodemographic and Labor Data Questionnaire, Negative Acts at Work Questionnaire, Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale, and Work-Family Interaction Scale, whose data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. A positive association was found between bullying and indicators of stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as negative interference between work-family and family-work with the same indicators. It was also observed the mediating effect of negative interference from work in family, in the relationship between mobbing and indicators of stress, anxiety, and depression. It was concluded, therefore, that the experience of mobbing affects the family and intensifies the psychological illness in gastronomes.

Cannabis Consumption in Dispensaries: Public Health Implications of an Emerging Practice.

Cannabis Consumption in Dispensaries: Public Health Implications of an Emerging Practice.

Hong Kong identities through food: tracing developments and variations of pineapple buns in modern complexities

ABSTRACT This cultural study examines how contradictory yet coherent Hong Kong identities are constructed and solidified through constant interactions between its ethnic community and changing political, economic, and social environments from late colonization to the present. To conduct evidence-based observations and analysis, pineapple bun is selected as the research object. Its historical emergence and modern variations serve as metaphorical representations of Hong Kong vernacular cultures, embodying local people’s negotiations with the land and their identifications toward the collective Self. The paper illustrates that different pineapple buns served in bing sutt, cha chaan teng, nouvelle restaurant, convenience store, and home kitchen signify distinct aspects of Hong Kong identities coexisting within contemporary complexities. These binary oppositions harmoniously imprinted in local ethnicity – flexibility and persistence, nativism and globalism, and utilitarian and hedonism – demarcate Hongkongese as a unique community apart from British colonists and mainland Chinese.

FIKWater: A Water Consumption Dataset from Three Restaurant Kitchens in Portugal

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and low-cost sensing technologies, the availability of data has reached levels never imagined before by the research community. However, independently of their size, data are only as valuable as the ability to have access to them. This paper presents the FIKWater dataset, which contains time series data for hot and cold water demand collected from three restaurant kitchens in Portugal for consecutive periods between two and four weeks. The measurements were taken using ultrasonic flow meters, at a sampling frequency of 0.2 Hz. Additionally, some details of the monitored spaces are also provided.

FIKWaste: A Waste Generation Dataset from Three Restaurant Kitchens in Portugal

In the era of big data and artificial intelligence, public datasets are becoming increasingly important for researchers to build and evaluate their models. This paper presents the FIKWaste dataset, which contains time series data for the volume of waste produced in three restaurant kitchens in Portugal. Organic (undifferentiated) and inorganic (glass, paper, and plastic) waste bins were monitored for a consecutive period of four weeks. In addition to the time series measurements, the FIKWaste dataset contains labels for waste disposal events, i.e., when the waste bins are emptied, and technical and non-technical details of the monitored kitchens.

Hand Hygiene Knowledge and Self-Reported Hand Washing Behaviors among Restaurant Kitchen Chefs in Jiangsu Province, China.

Inadequate hand washing among chefs is a major contributor to outbreaks of foodborne illnesses originating in restaurants. Although many studies have evaluated hand hygiene knowledge (HHK) and self-reported hand washing behaviors (HWBs) in restaurant workers in different countries, little is known about HHK and HWBs in restaurant kitchen chefs, particularly in China. In this study, we interviewed 453 restaurant kitchen chefs in Jiangsu Province in China regarding their HHK and HWBs and used Chi-square tests (Fisher exact tests), pairwise comparisons, and linear regression models to analyze the responses and identify determinants of HHK and HWBs. Results reveal that less frequent hand washing after leaving work temporarily and after touching used cutlery were the main issues among restaurant kitchen chefs in Jiangsu Province. Kitchen hands had lower levels of HHK and engaged less frequently in good HWBs than the other type of chefs. Furthermore, working in a large restaurant and having worked in the restaurant industry for a longer amount of time were correlated with better HHK and HWBs. These findings suggest that close attention should be paid to the HWBs of chefs during food preparation, that kitchen hands are the key group of restaurant kitchen workers who need training in HHK, and that regulatory activities should focus on small-scale restaurants.

Circular Procession

Circular Procession Brian Clifton (bio) "You a night guy?" a man asks me in the locker room of Dallas' Medieval Times, a chain restaurant themed as a medieval jousting tournament—think Dixie Stampede meets the Renaissance Fair. The man's angular face ends with a long goatee. His name is Gregory. He laces up his knee-high biker boots. They are plated with faux-chrome flames. He says, "I wanted to be a knight but they put me in the kitchen, probably because I have a DUI." He stops talking to tie up his hair. I start undressing. My pants are off when he says, "I don't need a job. I just can't stay at home all day. My girlfriend's a stripper, so she makes all the money. I'm just doing this so I don't have to sit at home." Gregory exits the locker room. In a few minutes, I will join him. ________ Coined by Jacques Derrida, hauntology is a near homonym in French to ontology. It refers to a situation in which the presence of being is replaced by a deferred non-origin. It is a philosophical ghost—neither present nor past, it haunts that which will be. Mark Fisher used the term to engage with music that shows its production seams to collapse time—distant past, close past, and present occupying the same moment when the stylus rolls across vinyl. ________ Washing dishes in most restaurant kitchens is a conveyor-belt affair. One dishwasher rinses the dishes in a sink and places them either in a thick plastic container or directly on the revolving belt. The belt carts the dishes into a large metal box with jets that blast off food and grime. The jets are a mixture of cleaning chemicals and water heated to around 140 degrees fahrenheit. The dishes emerge like new from the other opening of the machine, where another dishwasher removes them and stores them. At Medieval Times, there are two to three shows a day. The dishes begin to pile up about an hour into the night shift. We clean them and store them as quickly as possible, but there is always a backlog. After the first show, we often wash until, as if nothing had happened, the dishes reappear dirtied, waiting for us to do what we know we had already done before, the dishwasher churning between us. The machine is so loud that one employee cannot easily communicate to another, cannot warn one that a kitchen knife that might easily slice open a palm is coming through. So we do not speak. We do not try. We load; we unload, our simple and assigned task. [End Page 68] ________ Rowen and I visit the Menil Collection in Houston. We have begun to say I love you without hesitancy. It is early in our relationship—I still try to impress her with my inconsequential knowledge. Today's task is translating the Greek on the 12th and 13th century Byzantine icons. Translating is doubly difficult because I haven't practiced Greek for half a decade and because the icons have only a name and a single word. There is no way for me to pick up on context clues for meaning. Furthermore, the words are handwritten in a wavery text, broken randomly around the painting. I stammer through pronouncing the name of a saint I know nothing about. I lean in, as if being closer will jog my memory. Rowen does the same. We are enthralled with the syllables, the stylized bodies and faces of saints. A docent thrusts a hand out between the art and us. She says, "Please, back up." The museum rises up again, its white walls, its suit-jacketed employees, its opulence at the edge of the Montrose neighborhood. Museum docents, on average, make between nine and twelve dollars an hour. They are paid to stand silently, to ensure a safe distance between a museum guest and the art, the history it represents. What would happen if someone touched an icon? Would it crumble? Would alarms go off to signal the communion of past and present? ________ In the kitchen, there are constant...

Physical and psychological stress along with candle fumes induced-cardiopulmonary injury mimicking restaurant kitchen workers

Restaurant kitchens are work areas where involve strict and hierarchal environments that promote opportunity for bullying and workplace aggression and violence. These physical and psychological stress and fumes ultimately trigger severe occupational stress by disrupting the body's homeostasis that might induce cardiopulmonary injury. The study aimed to investigate the physical and psychological stress and candle fumes on cardiopulmonary injury in an animal model mimicking a restaurant kitchen worker. Social disruption stress (SDR) mice were exposed to scented candle fumes (4.5 h/d, 5 d/wk) in an exposure chamber for 8 weeks. Exposure to burning scented candles failed to reduce serum corticosterone level and increased proinflammatory cytokines levels and NF-ƙB activity in the lung. In addition, burning scented candle fumes synergistically increased SDR-induced serum LDH, CPK, CKMB levels, proinflammatory cytokines production as well as NF-ƙB activation in the lung and heart. Further, cardiac HIF-1α and BNP levels were also increased. We conclude that the physical and psychological stress along with candle fumes might induce cardiopulmonary injury in mice. These results could be extrapolated to restaurant kitchen workers.

Cloud-Kitchens in High-Density Cities: Economies of Scale Through Co-Location

Delivery platforms have recently ventured into (also called ghost or virtual kitchens), which are delivery-only facilities, built typically in locations with high population density, that provide commercial space to multiple restaurant kitchens for preparing their menu items. A cloud kitchen's central location allows for better access to customers, enabling the delivery platform to provide a lower delivery-time guarantee to customers -- this increases profitability for both the delivery platform and the restaurants. A potential second advantage accrues from the ability of the delivery platform to consolidate its driver capacity if multiple restaurants co-locate at the cloud kitchen -- this increases the delivery platform's profitability as it can use the same set of drivers to deliver orders for multiple restaurants. Cloud kitchens, however, come with high rental costs that are directly passed down to the restaurants. We examine the conditions under which a cloud kitchen benefits the three primary stakeholders, namely, the delivery platform, the restaurants, and the customers. Our game-theoretic analysis is based on a stylized model consisting of two restaurants and a delivery platform. The two restaurants simultaneously decide whether to stay at their initial (extreme) locations or relocate to a cloud kitchen at a central location. Given the location decisions of the restaurants, the delivery platform decides the delivery-time guarantee for customers and the proportion of the market to serve. Our findings show that both the population density of the city and the economies of scale provided by the cloud kitchen play a significant role in driving the restaurants' location decisions. In line with current industry trends, we show that as the population density increases beyond a threshold, co-locating at the cloud kitchen is first a Pareto-dominant equilibrium for the restaurants and then the unique equilibrium. This equilibrium is also preferred by the delivery platform and the customers, leading to a win-win-win for all the stakeholders. If the population density is below the threshold, then we identify an interesting lever through which the delivery platform can incentivize the restaurants to move to the cloud kitchen.

Chefs’ perspectives of failures in foodservice kitchens, part 1: A phenomenological exploration of the concepts, types, and causes of food production failure

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept, types, and causes of food production failure (FPF) in restaurant kitchens from the perspective of chefs. Employing a phenomenological epistemology, a qualitative methodology was adopted to explore FPF. Extant literature was reviewed. Using purposive sampling, and employing an emic posture, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior restaurant and hotel chefs until saturation occurred. Interviews were transcribed, read repeatedly, and coded using the qualitative analysis software package QDA Miner Lite. An inter-rater reliability score of .78 using Cohen’s Kappa coefficient formula reflected substantial agreement between coders. Thematic analysis was used. The study revealed three main categories of FPF types (sensory/organoleptic, safety, other) and FPF causes (People related failure; Operation-related failure; and Food supply/supplier-related failures). A conceptual model was developed from these categories underpinned by management control systems, continuous training, clear communication, and the organizational culture and climate of kitchens. Chefs found that FPF was inevitable based on human error, and can be precipitated by certain factors but reduced by other interventions. Research findings may assist in reducing its frequency, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and retention while reducing financial and environmental costs of FPF. Practical, theoretical, and managerial implications are discussed.

Sweet & sour: Postcolonial professional kitchens in the postmodernity

Abstract Inequality is a historical issue in Brazil, an inheritance of entangled and interdependent social, economic, political and legal injustices. This article summarizes a research on fine-dining restaurant kitchens in the city of Uberlandia, a major economic and migration hub in central Brazil, seeking to expose instances of inequalities replicated in these organizations. It attempts to offer a critical study of unfolding dialogues between its employees’ perspectives of their socio-cultural contexts and those of the organizations and their own contextual particularities, using the notions of medievality, global city and foodscape as categories of analysis, with further considerations on organization studies, postcolonialism and postmodernity. Its research corpus’ empirical material was collected through shadowing chefs in two restaurants and was analyzed in the light of those categories and considerations. It was possible to interpret that such workers, organizations, and their contexts reproduce symbols, behaviors and representations that may operate as sources of social distinction for their customers, but, paradoxically, may reinforce the inequalities that motivated the research.

Sweet & sour: Postcolonial professional kitchens in the postmodernity

Abstract Inequality is a historical issue in Brazil, an inheritance of entangled and interdependent social, economic, political and legal injustices. This article summarizes a research on fine-dining restaurant kitchens in the city of Uberlandia, a major economic and migration hub in central Brazil, seeking to expose instances of inequalities replicated in these organizations. It attempts to offer a critical study of unfolding dialogues between its employees’ perspectives of their socio-cultural contexts and those of the organizations and their own contextual particularities, using the notions of medievality, global city and foodscape as categories of analysis, with further considerations on organization studies, postcolonialism and postmodernity. Its research corpus’ empirical material was collected through shadowing chefs in two restaurants and was analyzed in the light of those categories and considerations. It was possible to interpret that such workers, organizations, and their contexts reproduce symbols, behaviors and representations that may operate as sources of social distinction for their customers, but, paradoxically, may reinforce the inequalities that motivated the research.

"What the fuck is this for a language, this cannot be Deutsch?" language ideologies, policies, and semiotic practices of a kitchen crew in a hotel restaurant.

In line with the post-Fishmanian turn that contributes to new understandings of social-semiotic practices in different contexts this study is concerned with the language management of ‘backstage performers’ of a three-star hotel kitchen crew in an Austrian alpine village that economically thrives on tourism, where employers and employees do not always share a common ‘language’. Recent free mobility labor rights for certain EU citizens have facilitated economic migrants’ ability to work abroad while simultaneously filling labor shortages within the country’s service industry in peripheral zones that are salient economic hubs. Drawing on ethnography and moment analysis, results indicate that for language-marginal occupations such as dishwashers, linguistic entrepreneurship is resisted since relying on shared semiotic repertoires and material objects for communicative purposes is preferred given the physically demanding occupation and stressful moments in a restaurant kitchen. The study questions Spolsky’s recently modified theory of language policy and management concerning the individual level regarding ‘advocates without power’ and employability contributing theoretical insights to on-going explorations of bottom-up LPP.

Determination of Physicochemical Parameters and Levels of Heavy Metals in Food Waste Water with Environmental Effects.

Bioinorganic chemistry is found as a sizzling field in today's era. It deals with chemistry amongst the heavy metals with natural resources, i.e., air, soil, water, plant byproducts (foods), and environmental essences. The aim of this research is to determine the concentration of heavy metals present in the food waste water sample and to study the environmental effects of metal ion concentration. To conduct the research work, the physicochemical parameters and levels of five heavy metals of food waste water samples were collected from five sampling points of renowned hotels, restaurants, canteens, and confectionaries of a state of India and assessed using the standard analytical procedure. Sampling was carried out from January 2017 up to December 2017. The physicochemical parameters were determined such as pH, temperature, turbidity, conductivity, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, total alkalinity, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, total organic carbon, sulphate, nitrate, and phosphate. The heavy metal concentration was determined by using the UV-spectrophotometer, and the results were compared with the standards prescribed by the WHO, BIS, ICMR, and municipal authorities. The results obtained in the physicochemical analysis revealed that a few parameters were found beyond limits, and the metal ion concentration (iron and zinc) results were found above the permissible limits set by the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board), ICMR, BIS, and World Health Organization (WHO), most especially, effluent from point P1. It was concluded that all the effluents required further treatment before releasing them into the water body or land to prevent pollution. The obtained results reveal that waste water used for irrigation and farming of nearby areas and water drained from restaurant kitchens were considerably polluted and not suitable for aquatic organisms, irrigation, and agricultural purposes.

Bullying in Korean hotel restaurant kitchens: why is everybody always picking on me?

PurposeThe primary purpose of this article is to develop and test a model of the antecedents and consequences (Cho et al., 2016) of bullying in Korean hotel kitchens.Design/methodology/approachCross-sectional survey data were collected from 288 kitchen workers at 12 upscale Korean hotels. Proposed path models were tested using Hayes' (2013) PROCESS syntax in SPSS for mediation and moderated mediation analyses.FindingsThe empirical results indicated that an employee's acquiescent silence behavior increases the likelihood of being bullied. As a result, bullied employees are more likely to respond by engaging in a person-related counterproductive work behavior (CWB-P) or in defensive silence out of fear with temporary employees reacting less aggressively compared to regular employees.Research limitations/implicationsCross-sectional design and self-report data risk common method variance and attributions of causality. Future research should use longitudinal designs to avoid common method bias and make causal inferences. Theoretical and practical implications for kitchen productivity are presented. The study should offer valuable insights for prospective employers to develop on-going training and create a positive working environment within the organization.Originality/valueWhile bullying is a widespread and even an epidemic problem for the commercial kitchen environment, research into abusive behavior among chefs has been limited. By utilizing a specific segment of the hospitality industry, this research identified different behavioral aspects of bulling between temporary and regular employees in the commercial kitchen environment.

호텔 조리 부서장의 리더십 유형이 조리사의 정서적 몰입에 미치는 영향 : 성격유형의 조절효과를 중심으로

The purpose of this study is understanding the effects of hotel kitchen department head's leadership style on chef's affirmative involvement and providing effective human resources management data of hotel restaurant kitchen organization by examining the moderating effects of chef's personality type (A type / B type) in leadership style and affirmative involvement relationship. The targets of this study were 391 chefs who worked for 1 year and longer at a five-star hotel in Seoul and questionnaire survey was conducted in February 2020. First, hotel kitchen department head's leadership styles had been classified based on the theory of transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and servant leadership and all three leadership styles have been found to have significant influence on affirmative involvement. Second, the moderating effects of personality type in the influencing relationship between hotel kitchen department head's leadership style and chef's affirmative involvement have been found as the following. Transformational leadership and servant leadership have influence on affirmative involvement of both personality types and transactional leadership has been found to influence the affirmative involvement of B personality type. As a result of verifying the moderating effects of personality type, the moderating effects of personality type have been found to play the role of meaningful moderating variable in the influencing relationship between leadership style and affirmative involvement

Research and Overview of Beyond Meat's Disruptive Innovation

In the past, meat is considered to be a luxury because of its high price that not everyone can afford, which only enjoyed on special days or festivals. However, it has become a daily necessity for life nowadays with the rapid economic development, an essential ingredient in every staple in the restaurant or home kitchen, and the main source supply for people to increase energy. Besides, as health education launched, "how to eat healthily" has become the most significant difficulty that needs to be solved for every family. There is no doubt that the market has been increasing and the demand for meat has been growing with the population growth all over the world. The market value of processed meat is expected to rise from 714 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to over 1.5 trillion dollars by 2022. Poultry is the most popular kind of processed meat, with a 38 percent share of the global market and red meat, which includes pork and beef, takes up about a 33 percent share. From the official report of the worldwide meat market, the quality and the inflated price of meat have become the most concern of the majority people, who deem it as the primary source of protein and nutrition supply.

The On-Site Energy Demand of Meats Consumed in Restaurants

The environmental burden and resource intensity of the modern global food system have obtained increased recognition worldwide. Past studies focused primarily on the pre-consumption stages of food life cycle, while food service at the use stage has rarely been addressed due to a lack of understanding in how energy use in restaurants is associated with food items. In this study, we present a novel three-stage approach that quantifies food-item-level energy demand in restaurant service scenarios, which includes an energy-to-food stage, a cooking energy usage stage and a building energy simulation stage. Common restaurant-served meat products in the U.S. (beef, pork, and poultry) prepared using an oven, a griller, and a broiler in a restaurant kitchen were selected as case studies. The results show that the on-site energy demand of these meat products ranges from ~10 to 25 MJ/kg, which is comparable to the energy demand in the food production stage. Heating/cooling, cooking, and the water systems are the main sources of energy demand. This study is the first to quantify the energy demand of individual food items in restaurants and can complement existing food life cycle studies. The results can help improve the understanding of the environmental consequences of dietary change.