Popular Mechanics/Volume 49/Issue 1/Running a Sea-Going Hotel
Just a Portion of the Broad Sports Field and Promenade Grounds Furnished by the Boat Deck of a Modern Liner: Here Tennis and Other Games Can Be Played at Sea
Eating your way across the Atlantic is a far different matter now from the days of clipper ships. There is no mention of salt beef or hardtack in the neat menus found in the modern steamship dining rooms.
Modern refrigeration changed the entire plan of catering on ocean liners. The passengers of these days can be served anything they desire in the way of fresh salads, eggs, milk, fruit and vegetables.
The refrigerating plants of the large ships are as big as good-sized city apartments. Each room is set aside for a particular kind of food, so that the chefs never have the unfortunate experience of the housewife who finds that her butter tastes a bit like salmon. On a ship there is at least one room for vegetables, one for butter, one for fish. one for beer and several for wine on European liners.
Catering on shipboard smacks of a science in its exactness, and like the sciences, it is careful with figures. The stewards have estimated the number of ounces of food required for each passenger on a voyage, and they know the cost of serving meals within a quarter of a cent a meal.
The food served on the liners is bought by the purchasing departments of the companies which own them, in most cases under the supervision of former chief stewards. The ships of American registry buy a large proportion of their supplies on this side, but foreign ships buy their staples abroad and try to confine their buying in this country to fresh supplies. Despite this rule, one line, in which most of the ships are of foreign registry. bought $2,000,000 worth of food in New York last year.
America excels so much in some foods, the stewards say, that even foreign lines buy these foods in New York for both east and west-bound passages. These foods are beef, coffee and several fruits, including grapefruit and oranges.
The Dream of Liner Architects and Decorators Is to Simulate a Land Hotel and Hide All Evidences of the Sea; This Main Dining Room of the "Ile de France" Achieves That End
The stewards say that the earmark of the American passenger is his insistence on grapefruit for breakfast. After the grapefruit he wants a cereal and then eggs, perhaps with bacon or ham, and toast and coffee. The Englishman is more likely to ask for a grilled bloater, ham or a rasher of bacon, a couple of fried eggs and oceans of tea. The stewards have to provide for every national taste in their international bills of fare.
Some standbys, such as roasts of beef, turkey, chicken and lamb, boiled potatoes, carrots, peas, turnips, string beans and cold meats, are on every menu. On most ships cold meats are a feature on sailing day; a table heaped with decorated cold meats is placed in the dining room. The average menu for dinner in the dining room includes soup, fish (small portions of each of these), an entree, a roast, a salad, sweets, coffee and cheese.
Most of the largest ships, for instance the "Majestic" and "Olympic," carry French restaurants. The meals in the dining room are paid for by every passenger when he buys his ticket, but some prefer to eat in the French restaurant, which costs them an average of $10 a day each. Those who prefer the restaurant are principally the society people on board and those who ape society's manners.
The Punch and Judy Show Has Almost Disappeared in the United States, But the French Liners Have Provided the Immortal Manikins to Entertain Children, and Grown-Ups, Too
Those who eat in the dining room have breakfast between eight and ten o'clock. The lady who has her meals in the French restaurant is likely to order coffee and rolls in her room about 10 a.m. She comes to the restaurant for her first meal at 12:30 or 1 p.m. At 8 p.m. she has an elaborate dinner, remaining at the table for a couple of hours.
She will order delicacies, such as artichokes, braised chicory, salads of tender young vegetables, romaine, hearts of lettuce, snails, plover's eggs in jelly, steak Chateaubriand, which is a steak cooked between two steaks, a great variety of shellfish, pheasant and grouse.
The waiters in the dining room on English ships are English, in the restaurant, French or Italian. These waiters, or rather stewards, are paid about forty-five
The Play Room of a Modern Liner Even Includes a Small-Size but Electric-Driven Merry-Go-Round; Below, Church Services of Various Denominations Are Regularly Held at Sea; This Is the Altar of the Chapel on One of the New French Liners
dollars a month, in addition to their board. The normal tip for a dining-room steward is from five to ten dollars a passenger for a voyage. A steward will collect from thirty to sixty dollars a voyage in tips. He will average about one round trip a month, working three weeks and staying ashore one.
The smoking-room stewards make more in tips than the dining-room men. The chief steward of a ship is not tipped but the second steward finds nothing in tradition to keep him from taking everything that is offered. It is not unusual for a second steward to receive a tip of as much as $100 from a wealthy passenger. The chief steward often makes more in roundabout ways. He may receive advice on investments, from some financier whom he has served on many voyages, that will be worth more to him than all the tips received on a voyage by all the men who are under him.
Americans, the stewards say, have a great liking for sweets. All the ships carry pastry cooks and confectioners, competent and well-paid men. One of the most important jobs of the confectioner is to make fancy birthday cakes for passengers who have birthdays on the Atlantic.
A good chef is paid at least $5,000 a year. The chef on the "Majestic" has under him seventy cooks, including a first, second and third meat cook, a first, second and third fish cook, etc. They cater to the tastes of passengers, who eat much more than they do on shore. The stimulation of salt air and other factors of ship life whet the appetite.
The stewards insist that few passengers miss meals because of seasickness, on the largest ships, and say that they expect and prepare for every passenger on the ship's list at every meal. On exceptionally rough voyages in the winter, however, there are many vacant chairs.
A housekeeper would be staggered by the job of caring for the kitchen and dining-room equipment on the "Majestic."
There are seventy-five tons of dishes and cooking utensils and more than three tons of silverware and cutlery.
What Is It? Just a View, Looking Downward, of the Circular Stairway of a New Liner, Built to Descend Many Decks into the Depths of the Ship, and Yet Save Room
It Is Hard to Imagine, When Dining in This Luxurious Room, That One is at Sea on the Stormy North Atlantic, for There Is No Hint of Sea in Room or Decorations
The "Ile de France" on Her Maiden Trip: Although Not So Large as Many American and English Liners, She Is One of the Most Luxurious
The steward has in his charge more than 10,000 tablecloths, 45,000 napkins and 5,000 aprons for the use of the cooks, stewards and stewardesses.
If the napkins were hung on a single line, side by side, the line would have to be seventeen miles long, and the tablecloths would occupy a line nineteen miles long.
If the ship's linen, including the bed room linen, could be hung on a line at the rate of six pieces a minute on the basis of an eight-hour day and five-and-a-half-day week, it would take twelve weeks to complete the job.
There are 80,000 pieces of china and crockery carried by the ship, including 30,000 plates, 16,000 cups. 13,000 saucers, 10,000 cooking dishes, 2,700 pitchers and 2,400 tea and coffee pots. Glassware totals 29,000 pieces, including 8,000 tumblers, 7,000 wine and spirit glasses (one notes that water seems to be more popular than wine), 7,000 salt, pepper and mustard containers and 1,600 water bottles.
Food by the ton and by the carload is needed to stock the "Majestic" for a round-trip voyage over the Atlantic.
The ship can carry a total of 4,100 passengers and has a crew of about 1,000. To feed these 5,100 people for a single round trip, the ship's refrigerators are stocked with seventy-five tons of meats in addition to ten tons of ham and bacon, twenty-eight tons of fish and about eighteen tons of poultry.
The vegetables served with these meats will include thirty tons of potatoes, seven tons of carrots and turnips, ten tons of cabbage, several tons of onions and half a ton of hot-house tomatoes.
Stores for a voyage include 1,000 each of plover, quail, snipe and pheasant, 750 each of partridge and grouse and 500 wild ducks, a total of 6,000 game birds.
The chef has for his menus 600 boxes of apples, 400 boxes of oranges and grapefruit, sixty boxes of pears and a ton of hothouse grapes. To prepare his desserts he has a ton of American ice cream, and has three tons of jams and marmalades.
The baker has for his ovens thirty-five tons of flour. The list of supplies includes eight tons of sugar, five tons of butter, three tons of coffee and tea, 80.000 eggs and 500 gallons of milk.
Smokers on board need not fear lacking cigarets. They are consuming a supply of 250,000 cigarets and 2,240 pounds of tobacco on a voyage, which ought to be enough for any reasonable group.
GIANT NUGGET KEPT BY BANK AS GOLD RESERVE
Weighing more than eighty ounces and valued at $1,408, a gold nugget forms part of the reserve for a national bank in Baker, Oreg. It is one of the largest nuggets ever found and was mined near by.
VOLCANO MODEL IS FEATURE OF EXHIBIT
Although Mt. Lassen, California's active volcano, is more than 10,000 feet high, it was graphically portrayed to visitors at an exhibition in San Francisco in a model, fifty-four feet high and with a base 300 feet long. The contours of the peak were faithfully reproduced and trees were placed about the model in such a way that, from a distance, it could hardly be distinguished from the real mountain.
COTTON RIVAL SEEN IN ANCIENT PLANT
Ramie plants, the fibrous stalks of which were used to clothe the Egyptian kings and to weave fabric coverings for their mummies, are being cultivated in California today. In the opinion of one grower, the crop holds great promise for the future as a source of textile material that can be used instead of cotton. An apparatus has been devised for cleaning it in large quantities and at little cost.
Cultivating the Ramie Plants; Growers Believe That the Fibers May Be Used as Cotton Substitutes
FIRE ESCAPE AS CHILD'S SLIDE GIVES HEALTHFUL SPORT
The Fire-Escape Slide for Outdoor Playground Gives a Much Longer and Faster Coast
One of the most popular units on an outdoor playground is an old fire-escape chute that has been converted into a slide for the children. It is securely attached to a substantial scaffold, and a flight of stairs leads to the entrance. Being higher than the average slide, it affords more thrill.
FORTY THOUSAND GLASS EYES USED IN U. S. YEARLY
The United States imports 40,000 glass eyes annually, according to official reports. Many of them are works of art and so closely resemble the natural organs that they can hardly be distinguished from them. Safety experts are recommending the universal wearing of goggles by industrial workers, pointing out that hardly any occupation can be considered entirely non-hazardous with respect to the eyes.