Trail mix: One day at the cafeteria

Students like Schnitzel

An employee of the Tübingen Mensa. With her colleagues she feeds more than 3000 students every day.

To feed more than 3000 students a day, you have to get up early. Mayor Rudi Gaiser has been working for one and a half hourswhen I appear in his office at eight o'clock in the morning. I tied my hair back tight and did not wear jewelry. That's what the hygiene regulations demand. Also my fingernails are unpainted. The paint could splinter and get into the food. Rudi Gaiser pointed this out emphatically.

Mensa boss Rudi Gaiser at work.

He is a trained chef and has been working since 2003 for the Tübingen Studentenwerk, which runs the cafeteria. With his mustache and brown hair, Gaiser recalls Johann Lafer, the master of pots from television. What students like and what they do not, he now knows exactly. "Poultry, schnitzel with chips and spaghetti bolognese are the most popular dishes," he says. Heavy food like "Kasslerbraten" is "something of dead". Grandma's Sunday dinner is therefore demonstrably out.

Alaska salmon with potato salad and vegetable vegetarian lasagna are on the menu this Friday.

Petra Wassermann, a hearty blonde with the old-fashioned title "Homemaker" shows me the storerooms of the cafeteria in the basement. I am surprised how small the supplies are. Pasta, rice and spaetzle are stored here in some boxes, but the majority of the food is delivered on the day it is also processed. It's 8:30 and two men load 200 kilograms of fish filet from a truck. In the 1960s, the Studentenwerk ran its own butchery and pastry shop. Today it is supplied by large companies such as Deutsche See or Rewe.

>> On the next page: Fish with lemon, please!

In the cafeteria, the food moves on the treadmill.

A tub of soup

Is it still allowed to be a little lemon? BYM.de author Antonina at the rehearsal in the cafeteria

The heart of the cafeteria, the kitchen, has long been in operation. In a large tub made of stainless steel, 500 liters of vegetable soup are bubbling away. The first Lasagna are in the oven. It smells delicious. Bread rolls are baked. I am impressed: In this canteen kitchen utensils are oversized. On the wall hang ladles and whisk, which are about a meter long.

The cafeteria has three cooks and 37 permanent employees. Chef Walter Zipf looks at me skeptically. Maybe he's afraid that I'm getting in his way today or asking annoying questions.

The fish is here, the salad cut - this Friday everything is going well. But Rudi Gaiser, whom I meet again in the kitchen, tells me that there are always bottlenecks. "The crunchy cream cheese is a popular product," he explains. "But sometimes the trade can not get enough of it." If there is no delivery, the refectory team improvises. The menu is changed without further ado and stocks in the freezer room are used.

Once fish with lemon, please!

A goalkeeper is afraid of shooting a penalty, a chef is afraid of a Salmonella infection. "So far there has been no incident," says Rudi Gaiser. Beetle or a screw but the employees have ever found in the salad.

It is just before eleven-thirty. I have to change clothes because I will work on the food distribution. On the other side of the counter, where I usually do not stand. A white T-shirt, a hood covering my hair, plastic gloves - let's go. My job is to put a slice of lemon on the fish. Chef Walter Zipf approaches me. Says briskly, I should make an effort. Then he grins. Was not meant seriously.

>> On the next page: A flushing monster in the basement

The dishwasher monster in the basement of the cafeteria

Nobody looks at me

It is early, there is still little rush. The women with whom I wait for the band on clientele have a lot of time to chat. The stress level among employees is lower than I thought. The team has already been recorded.

I stand in my white chasm on the conveyor belt, holding lemon slices in my hands and a little afraid of mockeries of fellow students. My concern turns out to be superfluous. The students do not seem to notice the staff at all. They grab the food off the tape without a word or sight. I intend to greet the employees from now on and look them in the face.

Rinse monster in the basement

Delicious? A cafeteria employee stirs in the spinach

As a student from Tübingen, I put my used tray on a conveyor belt after the meal and it's good.But what happens next? The amount of crockery that is produced daily, of course, is not rinsed by hand. There are no dishwashers, but a loud flushing monster in the basement. The meter-long machine can rinse up to 6000 pieces of crockery at the same time and has cost a million marks once. In the first step, a magnet pulls the cutlery out of Chromagan from the tray, in the second bowls and trays are separated and transported on conveyor belts into the interior of the machine. Sparkling and heated to 85 degrees, the dishes come back to the light and can be used again the next day. And the next day ...