Tons of fresh meat and vegetables, butter, and eggs are stored in ice-cold cellars. Each day a supply is brought up and put into iced larders for that day's issue.
Here are some of the amounts taken in the ship for one voyage: 5 tons bacon, 50,000 eggs, 6 1/2 tons butter, 45,000 oranges, 9000 lb. jam.
In the great kitchen are a dozen cooks at work preparing the meals for all classes—the cooking is exactly the same for all. Also the quality of food is the same, except that the first-class get more variety and choice of different dishes. In the bakery is made the daily supply of bread for the whole ship, and also baked puddings, cakes, and sweetmeats.
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POTATO PEELING.
There were lots of interesting machines used in the kitchen to save time and labour.
For instance, there was a machine for peeling potatoes; a round metal tub in which the potatoes were rushed round and round until their skins were rubbed off, and they were ready for the cooking-pot.
There were egg-boiling machines, which, working by clockwork, kept the eggs in boiling water for whatever time was desired, and then took them out without any attention on the part of the cook.
There was a bread-slicing machine and a plate-washing machine, the dirty plates being placed in iron racks and lowered into a tank where boiling water is dashed on to them from both sides, so that they clean themselves in no time. There was also a machine for kneading the dough for making bread.
In fact, the whole place was a marvel of work and organisation all compressed into a very small space, and yet done most successfully and cleanly.