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Well-balanced and appropriate menus are absolutely necessary to the success of any establishment serving food. Given the best of raw materials and the most competent cooks, the institutional manager will fail to please his patrons if his menus show lack of careful planning. The truth of this assertion is verified by the analysis of many failures.

On the other hand successful menu planning is not especially difficult. Like any other art it requires careful study and observance of a few simple rules.

Of course, it is impossible to formulate one set of rules that will apply to all situations. Each manager must make his own rules based on the conditions he has to meet. There are, however, certain basic principles to be recognized and followed. If the ensuing chapters succeed in explaining these principles and in emphasizing their importance, the authors' purpose will have been served.

In planning menus for an institution the manager must:

Keep in mind the nature of the institution; its purpose; the character of its patronage.

Follow certain dietetic principles.

Maintain constant variety in the food.

Keep menus appropriate to the temperature; the weather; the season; occasional holidays.

Recognize the limitations imposed by equipment; amount and kind of help; range of cost permitted; left-over foods to be used; form of service.

The first point to consider in planning a menu is the type of institution to be served. For reasons that are obvious, the purpose of the high school cafeteria is very different from that of the metropolitan hotel, while neither of these has the same object as the municipal tuberculosis sanitarium.

The age, sex, nationality, economic condition and occupation of the patrons must be kept in mind. The adult demands a freedom of choice which may be denied children. For this reason the content of the grade school lunch may be fixed in an arbitrary way, while this will not do when one is dealing with adults of any class. For instance, grade school children are satisfied with the morning bowl of bread and milk and the noon lunch of bread and soup. Adults, even in a charitable home, would undoubtedly complain of the simplicity of such meals. The high school lunchroom may eliminate coffee from its menu and have frequent "pieless" days. Any such attempts to regulate the diet of adults, except for patriotic reasons such as were the incentive to denial during the war, are highly inadvisable.

As far as the food elements are concerned, the same kinds of food may be served to boys and girls or to men and women. But, practically, they will not eat the same foods with equal satisfaction, and this should influence the planning of menus in different institutions.

School lunch managers and social service workers have found that in order to accomplish their aims they have to recognize racial food tastes.

The economic condition of the group to be served may limit variety in the menu, on the one hand, or may permit of maximum variety on the other. The eight-page menu of the fashionable tea room as definitely reflects the ability of the patrons to pay as does the simple meal of three or four dishes served the immigrants at Ellis Island.

The occupation of the patrons, whether active or sedentary, determines to a large extent the kind of food served to them, from the dietetic standpoint and from the commercial standpoint as well. The lumberjacks of the north woods require a diet very different in quality and quantity from that of the telephone operators in a city exchange.

In institutions serving set menus, with little or no choice, special attention should be given to dietetic principles. Examples of such institutions are college dining halls or dormitories, hospitals, benevolent "homes," boarding houses, fraternities and clubs.

For those who have had little or no training in dietetics and who yet have the responsibility of planning menus, it may be said that if ample variety is provided, with emphasis on fruits and vegetables, the dietetic requirements will probably be met.

The sequence of foods in the menu is important. Where several courses are to be served, and it is the aim of those planning the menu to keep the appetite stimulated, acids, meat extractives and warm foods should be served first. Cloying foods such as sweets, very cold foods and foods which are satisfying tend to depress the appetite and hence have no place in the first course of a meal, except for luncheon where the menu may be very simple. In institutions which have fixed menus, it is especially desirable that the meal, no matter how simple, be so planned that it may be served in courses. Children especially are likely to hurry through their meals, and the serving of food in courses prevents too rapid eating. It is true, of course, that extra service requires more labor, and so may not prove possible, even though desirable.

The responsibility for maintaining a constant variety in food calls for the continued exercise of initiative, the determination to avoid monotonous repetition, a mind open to new foods and new methods of preparation and systematic marketing trips in order to keep in touch with seasonal changes. Perhaps the most frequent criticism of institutions is on the lack of variety in meals. Hotels, clubs and tea rooms can draw trade by serving out-of-season foods when they first appear in the market. Institutions whose purchases are limited by a budget should make the most of seasonal foods when the market is at its height and the food is cheapest. Such institutions should avoid serving foods that are not actually in season. Serving berries or melons before the height of the season dulls the appetite of the patron for these foods so that by the time they have become economical to serve he has tired of them.

Variety should be introduced not only in the kinds of food but in the preparation, garnish and service. Even in charitable homes and other institutions where the aim is to serve at a minimum cost, the menus can be made attractive through variety in preparation. Corn meal and cottage cheese, two of the least expensive foods we have, can be utilized in a wide variety of ways. There should be no hesitation about serving new dishes, for maximum variety is essential to a happy patronage whether in the tea room or the benevolent institution. The point to be kept in mind, where the guest has the privilege of selection, is that all the variety should not come within the day or meal but within the week or month. Surprise always helps to induce appetite and this fact is as applicable to the menu in the children's home as to that of the tea room.

It is good business practice as well as good dietetic practice to plan meals according to the weather and the time of year. Hot, heavy foods sell best in cold weather. Cool, crisp, fresh foods sell best on the hottest days. The public is very susceptible to weather conditions. Holidays give a popularity to certain foods which they enjoy at no other time of the year. It is good business to make the most of these foods by serving them on appropriate days.

There are definite relations between the menu and the equipment available for its execution. For instance, a menu which calls for oven cooking to the exclusion of the use of the top of the stove or supplementary steamers will be impossible to carry out. The menu should be planned in order that the cooking may be divided between all the available equipment, such as ovens, steamers and top space on stoves. In the kitchen, as in the industrial plant, it is good management to give space only to efficient equipment and to use that equipment to its maximum capacity.

Again, incomplete equipment may have to be considered in planning the menu. If there is no power machinery the amount of hand work or heavy physical preparation called for may have to be cut down in accordance with the equipment at hand. In serving large numbers power machinery will often pay for itself in a few months through the saving in labor. It will not only do the work better and more humanely but will allow a much greater variety of food. In the matter of equipment the institution must get away from the idea that it is a large home, with working conditions as they have been in the average home. It should consider itself an industrial plant where one of the aims is maximum production with minimum labor; and it should realize that proper equipment and proper working conditions are necessary in the accomplishment of this aim. Even though the labor supply may be adequate, efficient planning of menus demands that there be an adjustment between those foods requiring much labor and those requiring little, so that proper balance may be maintained.

In discussing the limitations in menu making the element of cost has come up again and again. It becomes a definite restriction in institutions that work on a budget, or where the group to be served demands good wholesome food at the lowest price. As examples of such institutions there are the factory cafeteria, the school lunch and the college cafeteria.

Though menus must be made out in advance of the day when they are to be used, they should be sufficiently elastic to allow for proper utilization of left-overs. Using left-overs may mean very little change and substitution, or may require complete revision of the day's meals. Left-overs must be used, for it is only by constant care that the food cost can be kept down to a minimum. That this is true of all institutions, whether great or small, is shown by the extreme care exercised in the largest hotels to the end that no food shall be wasted. Where there is family service, rather than plate service from the kitchen, there will probably be a large amount of left-over food. It requires a good deal of ingenuity to use these left-overs in some other form so as to maintain variety and that element of surprise which is so essential. In the cafeteria or other institution using à la carte service the left-over problem is not so serious. It is very nicely taken care of in tea rooms and hotels which serve a club luncheon, the menu for which may be chiefly made up from the left-overs.

It is obvious that the form of service may influence the kind and extent of the menu. That is, the cafeteria can serve a large variety of dishes because the patrons wait on themselves. A similar choice or variety is impracticable where there is table service, except in hotels, restaurants and tea rooms where cost is not so great a factor.