What is the different between Restaurant cooking and Nursing Home cooking?!
Answers: Explain how the cooking in Restaurant differs from cooking in Nursing Home. Compare Menus,Equipments used,Food preparation techniques,Nutritional facts,food cost and kitchen setup.
Dieticians DO NOT cook in a Nursing home.They help with menus and resident care regarding food.
The difference is that in restaurants you cook many types of food in a day.
In a nursing home the menu is usually on a four week rotation.You cook a main course and an alternate course for each meal.Then you have the special diets such as salt free,gluten free etc.That is where the dietician comes in and you have your special diets on a daily basis.
You also have chopped (ground) diets for those who have a problem chewing and pureed food for those who have a problem chewing.
There is really no comparison to cooking in a restaurant and cooking in a nursing home.
Some of the equipment is comparable and some is not as you cook such large quantities at a time.I cooked for 200 people.Our Nursing home was also divided into three large areas.Retirement home,nursing home and an Alzheimers unit.For example,instead of small soup pots,we had a floor standing soup kettle.a large convection oven and a double steamer.Our food mixer was a large floor standing model.
I could go on and on about the differences but hope I've given you somewhat of an idea.
Feel free to email me if you have any other questions and I'll answer you to the best of my ability.
You do have to be a certified cook/chef.
Good luck if this is what you're interested in.I enjoyed it immensely and you get a lot of satisfaction from watching the residents enjoy their meals.They don't have much else to look forward to on a daily basis,sad to say.
You do cook with seasonings except for those on the special diets.It's not really difficult as there aren't usually that many of those surprisingly enough.
Retired Cert.Cook
The difference is in the chef that is cooking and that's the bottom line.
One of the main differences is the salt usage. Nursing homes have lots of people who cant have salt or even things like dairy product. Another is that some have to be pureed for people who cant chew well. Not much difference in Menus,equiptment, and kitchen setup. The preperation goes back to the seasonings used. All around the nursing home has healthier foods because most does not contain the fat content as a restaurant does.
Wow you could potentially write a whole paper on this subject. I'll try and make this quick.
In a restaurant you can pretty much have whatever kind of food and prepare it anyway you want to of course being under the rules of food saftey laws. Since nursing homes have "high risk" population (they can and will get sick more easily) you'll have more strict rules here.
There are also different factors that can determine the kind of food depending on if they get any government funding or what-not.
I've seen pretty much the same kind of equipment used in both kitchens as well as the setup can be very similar. Every kitchen is different.
Prep techinques are very similar as well. I have found that with nursing home portioning is more strict and you really don't have a choice in how much you're giving these people. Like I've already said, you have strict nutritional guidelines you have to follow. You might not be able to use certain oils or dairy products that you'd normally use and definetly not use as much salt and other strong flavorings. Also service style is different. Typically in a restaurant everything is per order and table. In a nursing home the meal is usually set and is served like a banquet or delievered to their rooms (like a hospital). All the meals are made at once and then distributed.
Lastly on your list is the food cost. Now in my experience you usually have more strict guidelines with a nursing home food cost. The people in there are paying a flat fee for staying there. This means you only have a certain amount to work with. If you go over that amount, you could be in trouble. It's similar in a restaurant, but at least in a restaurant you're able to pull money in from someplace else if you happen to go over a suggeseted food cost limit (I don't condone ever going over food cost limits).
I hope this helps a little. Like i said there are so many difference and factors that can be taken into account and I just dont' have the time to list everything.
Probably the use of salt.
Restaurants use more seasoning and usually cooked by a chef.
Nursing Home uses no seasonings because of the different health problems people have and is usually cook by a dietitian.