I was watching a TV show about the Santa Fe Super Chief. A segment mentioned that Santa Fe’s French Toast was legendary. Has anybody actualy tried? Or know where to find the recipe?[C=:-)]
Just Google “Sante Fe railroad french toast” for more than you may care to know.[C=:-)]
I have enjoyed it many times in Santa Fe dining cars. Wonderful!!!
I did that and looked at the first recipe to come up. Then I tried to figure out just how many extra “statin” pills I’d have to take to eat it. It might be worth it, though.
I suppose you could use extra-light olive oil to make a little more heart healthy.
What I find amazing is that they could serve complicated recipes from those
small kitchens.[C=:-)]
The recipe and instructions are on page 174 of “Dining By Rail” written by James D. Porterfield. It involves bread, eggs, light cream and more work than I care to spend making my breakfast. You fry, then bake, the bread. Sounds good though. Pages 172-174 contain French Toast recipes from Northern Pacific, Soo Line, Pennsylvania, Union Pacific and Santa Fe dining cars.
My favorite recipe is on page 320. “Honeyed Sweet Potatoes, Central of Georgia Style.” I’ve made it and it’s great. I summoned the fire department with it once. My significant other female friend was comming over and I was cooking dinner. I was boiling the honey, butter, sugar and water. I had a boil over and it set off my ADT alarm system.
Aparently, you can’t stop a fire department. No matter how much I explained over the phone that there was no fire, just a boil over, they had to come see for themselves. When they showed up at my front door there was this big red truck out front with all these lights flashing. One of the guys had an ax.
The Guy In Charge Of The Other Firefighters had to come in and see for himself. After I pointed to the pot of sweet potatoes on the stove and said “It Boiled Over” the Guy In Charge Of The Other Firefighters asked me what I had been cooking. I told him “Honeyed Sweet Potatoes, Central of Georgia Style.”
They were gone and I had the mess cleaned up by the time she got here.
Kitchens that were bouncing along jointed rail at up to 90mph!
I’m sure that jointed rail ran smoother than some CWR does today.
The recipe really doesn’t sound all that bad to prepare. The difference between my kitchen and any food preparation facility is that I would have to heat up the oven and frying pan. Considering that this was an ATSF specialty, I would suspect that turning it out would be quite easy, even to the extent that it could be prepared in anticipation of as-yet unmade orders.
One recipe gave a prep time of 20-25 minutes, but if everything is already set up, I’d think that start to serve would be closer to 7.
Now there’s an article that hasn’t been written yet - at least not that I’m aware of - the details and procedures of how they do that. Someone (Lucius Beebe ? David P. Morgan ? William Moedinger ?) once marveled in print at how such culinary masterpieces could be produced from such cramped quarters. I’ve seen floor plan outlines from car diagrams and toured the kitchens of some diners in museums, but I’ve never seen a detailed examination of each cabinet, drawer, etc., and the positions and duties and functions of each of the 6 or so kitchen staff. Now that I’ve (OK, also with my wife, a cabinetmaker, and his wife - an interior designer) finished designing, installing, and am now paying for the kitchen in our new house, I have much better appreciation of how the layout, work flow, and product interact with and influence each other - really, another aspect of “time and motion” or efficiency industrial engineering.
An article or video of the preparation of a typical meal on a real working railroad diner (not just a “heat ‘n’ serve” catered affair as on some of the dinner trains) - all the prep, steps to cook & serve, etc. - with a good narrative would be really interesting. A few years ago I shot some still print photos of the Algoma Central’s diner during the return trip, when it was a little less hectic - will have to dig those out and see if I can post them someplace. Probably an Amtrak diner is too busy and encumbered by bureaucratic restrictions to use that as the setting, but maybe either a tourist operation such as the Algoma, a dinner tra
I have no recognized qualifications in this - other than I think breakfast is the best meal of the day, and I cook my own (scrambled egg substitutes) pretty often and our Sunday morning vegetable omelette, but here goes:
1.) My college fraternity had a southern cook who worked at many of the resorts, esp. as a pastry chef. (R.I.P, Eleanor Winkey.) She did everything like this in lard - [:O] - as some of the recipes mentioned - a 1/2" deep pool of cooking oil, for those of you who haven’t looked or missed that detail. I wonder how much of that gets absorbed into the bread - I’m sure that’s why it tastes so good ! [swg] Times have sure changed [sigh]
2.) Now that I’m more informed about such things: I wonder how it would work to use one of the vegetable oil sprays instead - coat the bottom of the pan with it, fry one side, then re-coat to fry the other side, repeat, etc. If you don’t care for the taste of that, then maybe using just a thin layer of melted butter or lard to get the flavor in most of that surface of the bread - again, replacing it as needed as it is absorbed and used up during the frying process - without completely saturating the bread as would happen if it were being deep-fried in the 1/2" of cooking oil ?
3.) It would be fun and informative at a railfan gathering - while waiting between t
Having ‘been there, done that’ as a customer I can assure you it did not take 20 minutes to prepare. And the French Toast always appeared freshly prepared. How they accomplished it, plus all of the additional orders served in a timely manner amazed me.
Paul’s ideas about documenting a first class dining car kitchen operation is worth pursuing.
I’d bet the batter wasn’t made up in such small batches, and also that the the cooks were adept at “skinning” an entire loaf of bread at one time, especially if they hand-cut the bread (again, ahead of time). Once they hit the flow, the big time killer was the oven. Depending on the available range space, they could, of course, have several orders going at once.
I’ll second the look at a full diner in operation.
A friend of a friend who is a firefighter in my town once arrived at the building I was living in after the alarm had gone of for the third time in a week due to a faulty sensor. He explained that most fire departments have a mandatory policy of responding to alarm activations even if the residents are certain there is no fire (because there have been situations where someone decided there was no fire a
Can’t Stop the Fire Dept. sub-thread, cont’d.:
Me, too - a couple of stories very short:
1.) Some years ago a leaking hose on gas grill caught fire, including 20 lb. ppropane tank. Cleared the patio and called 9-1-1. Put it out* with fire-extinguisher and garden hose, probably before the guys even got to the station (1.0 mile away). Called 9-1-1 back to advise same - they said the Fire Co. had to come anyway. OK, but please let them know the situation seems to be stabilized so that they can gauge the response accordingly in terms of numbers and speed, traffic control, etc. Cop got there first and advised same. Woodlawn Fire Co. came for the reasons mentioned above and checked around, did paperwork - maybe 10 minutes on-scene, max. Glad they’re around when needed. Regular contributor to annual fund drive thereafter.
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- Now there’s a difficult decision to make quickly: Let it burn until the Fire Co. gets there, maybe in the meantime intensifying and heating and exploding the tank in a “BLEVE” and spreading to the adjoining structure, etc. ? Or try to put it out with the fire extinguisher and garden hose, and risk getting caught unprotected in the possible blast and fireball ? My nature and assessment of the situation led to the latter, but I wouldn’t fauly anyone who chose the former.
2.) Electrical fault in wire to apartment above ours caused lights to flicker, arcing, smoke, etc. Took down suspended ceiling, found problem - entire kitchen being run off a lamp cord - cut breaker, called landlord. Did not call Fire Co. - big mistake !!! Moved out early on lease - had to sue to get security deposit back - his word vs. ours. Had we called Malvern Fire Co., bldg. inspector would have become involved, then official reports would have been made
Short article on dining car operations:
“Preparing Dinner in the Dining Car Kitchen” at:
http://catskillarchive.com/rrextra/cooking.Html
With all the interest in cooking and “foodies” today, I believe this would be a popular subject. Thansk for the support and expresions of interest. Bergie ???
- PDN.
[(-D] Good story! Obviously, the CofG’s to blame…
Now I know why my wife always tries her new recipes out on me and the kids before making the dish for her bunco group.
In 1976,A friend and I were on the Sunset Ltd. and were seated at breakfast with a couple eating the French toast.I asked about how it was and was told that Amtrak used the Santa Fe recipe for French toast.We both tried it and loved it.I got the French toast often since then.Not too long after that Amtrak changed their recipe for French toast,and it was not as good ever since.I wish Amtrak would go back to serving Santa Fe French toast.
I watched the Super Chief show on RFDTV last week and the chief gave some hints on the way it was made, but no exact instructions.
I liked the inside pictures of the train especially the Turquise room That room was the private one below the Pleasure dome car and it was always booked.
CZ
Paul,
By sheer coincidence, the e-mail I got from Karen’s Books featured, among other titles, Forty One Years in the Dining Car & Hotel Department of the Union Pacific by Jules Hansink (softcover, 81 pages).
On a slightly different subject, one of the most fascinating articles on the rrextra website is the one on the “Electric Time Service” - covering how time information was transmitted to the northeastern US ca. 1880, with description of the Time Ball used in major cities to signal 12 noon.