I was delighted to read this paen to the hard-done-by pan-wash person, to the physicality of the kitchen porter, to the spirituality of the pot-wash genius, nay, magician, via the indispensable, The Oxford Companion to Food.
There’s a quote from Michel Roux that says similar:
“good food starts with a clean pan…”
From my days on the cross-Channel ferries — often working in the pan-wash — I can vouch for the fact that standing behind one of these industrial-sized behemoths…
..for anything up to ten hours at a time puts one — the oft-unhallowed, un-acknowledged KP, the hero of this piece — at the very epicentre of what feels like a Dantean Sixth Circle of Hell, a steaming, deafening, inferno. There’s mechanical noise, shouting others, dirty soap suds leaking from washer-less holes, the clattering of everything, steam hissing and jetting clouds and an unending, unending stream of kitchenware, crockery, and cutlery which puts a physical strain on the body and soaks the hardiest of shirts and trousers and underwear to full-0n saturation and beyond. Best to wear as little as possible. And clogs. Reinforced, steel toe-capped clogs.
Of course, the domestic environment can be more restful, calmer, meditative even, place. Unless you have a ‘helper’ who insists on doing things their way. The wrong way. Then, you’re back in Hell.
Just remember, be kind to the pan-wash person. On them, you depend. There’s a very special place in Hell (unknown even to Dante) reserved for those fools who look down on or mistreat their KP. You have had due warning…