The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-11-19

OOlORne. NONenDer l.-NCOFTtSpOilN7 ence of the Associated Press)-Tht municipality of Cologne is today the biggest restauranteur in the world It feeds six days a week, nearly hall Of it's population of about 70000 per sons, at the astonishing price of two marks (50 cents) a week for six square meals. It supplies the food from a Kitchen" that has cost millions to construct, and delivers it by means of hundreds of teams and automomibles fin utensils that alone represent an in vestment of thousands.
 To do this it has to employ all in all several thousand people. whereby it also does good because it thus gives employment to people who need it. It invests, weekly and monthly, thou sands of marks and manages to break about even on the investment.
 There is a system of housing pota toes, which plays a very important part, of course, in feeding 300,OOO persons. Then there is the drying or evaporating plant The supply of veg etables and fruit is at all times irreS- ular, not only because of the seasons but also because of transportation
  Cologne ate what came and cared com paratively little about the morrow, it now realizes that no single ounce Of food may be wasted, and 1t prevents such waste by drying and preserving for future use each extra pound of apples and plums, of lettuce and cab bage that arrives and is not eaten up at once.
 NOVEL SIDE FEATURE
 z T features" is that part of the city kitchen where wastage is saved. It reminds one of the Chicago packer who boasted that he knew how to make use of every part of the pig but the squeal. Not only from the ordinary wastage from food prepared at the city kitchen but from garbage carefully collected all over the city there is now extracted & certain percentage of material that, in dry form, can be used for human consumption again. In addition, of course, there is a large percentage that goes for feeding swine, and lastly, there is extracted a substance used with excellent results for "horse bread food that looks not unlike dark colored human bread and that is said to form an excellent complement 10 the present scanty supply of oats
 Colognes city kitchen came into be- ing not long after the war started. It was especially necessary for a num- Der of reasons Cologne is the biggest city anywhere near the front, and as such receives daily and weekly, swarms of men who either are on their way to the fighting, or are returning from it. The normal population is constant- 1y swollen by an artificial population that must be taken into account.
 At first the kitchen-which began by sending out wagonloads of food for distribution on the streets-was hard ly a success. The people were inclined to look askance at the novelty. Grad ually, however, they took to it, once they found that the food was good, nutritious and tasty. Immediately an- other problem arose. that of distribut- ing the food in such a way that long lines of people would not gather in the narrow streets of the city and clog transportation.
 As the number of people taking ad- vantage of the wholesome monday meal increased gradually by leaps and bounds the authorities hit upon the scheme of subscriptions and that plan Is in force today. The citizen who wishes to patronize the restaurant of his city now subscribes by the week and at a stated hour each day one of the municipal wagons appears, bear ing the food in tightly sealed, heat retaining cans, as warm as it was when it left the kitchen, perhaps an hour before.
 WOULDN'T RECOGNIZE TT
 The kitchen, originally a manufac- turing plant, has been so thoroughly rebuilt and rearranged that it's for 1ner occupations would no longer recog- nize it. The largest part of it is built above the ground and around row of huge kettles. each capable of cook ing from seven to eight thousand quarts at once. so that from one side potatoes, properly prepared, can pour into the kettles, vegetables from an- other side, meat from another and water from fourth.
 Each days meal Sunday is except ed) consists in the main of a thick soup or stew, of which the component parts are an almost infinite variety If vegetables. potatoes and meat The preparation is accomplished with a re- gard for cleanliness that could hard 1y be excelled in the kitchen of any fine hotel or private home.
 Potatoes brought in from the rail- road. or from the storehouses of the city are dumped into a trough through which water flows, and borne along and up to a height of some eight feet over a winding screw This process removes most of the surface dirt. From the height they fall into an ingenious machine that peels them with great exactness and from this they pass through another waterfilled trough to where women stand with knives and cut out the eyes.
 After the hand work is finished the potatoes once more go into trough That fairly boils with water constant 1y in motion, and pass underground while being washed once more to 2 second ladder up which they climb to slicer. Thence they go to the kettles.
 VEGETABLE PROCESS
 Tn another portion of the building a somewhat similar process goes on with the vegetables. They, too are washed not once. but many times. and then arc cut up. washed again. passed from one machine to another, until at last they are ready for the kettles. Meat that comes in on huge trucks shares the same fate. passes through chopper that cuts it into cubes. and thence on- ward through a washing machine .to the kettles.
 The principal wastage from potatoes of course. is the part that clings to the peelings and to extracted eyes. To save this a special machine has been invented and the astonishing amount of potato substance thus saved is dried and later utilized for food in some wal or other.
 The Kitchen refuse that comes into the plant in huge wagonloads goes through a variety of drying processes