Dreamland

Life as a Cafeteria Cook

I’m a cook; I work in an all-you-can-eat discount cafeteria somewhere down South. Today we’re making turkeys, the head chef tells us to cook them “dogmeat style”. I ask what that is, he says to just leave them in the plastic wrappers and boil them up in the pot, as is, gizzards and all. “We just unwrap ‘em, throw away the plastic, take the boiled innards and use ‘em to make gravy, and slice up the meat and put it out on the platter.”

“Won’t the people know? Won’t the meat taste like plastic?” I ask.

“Nah, they like it!” he says. “I’ll roast one up in the oven regular, and put it out for the folks that like the skin crispy.”

We cook the turkeys and make the gravy; put them out on the buffet table along with mashed potatoes, veggies, etc. The boiled turkey meat disappears quickly, while the roasted turkey meat is mostly ignored. Customers are asking the head chef how he gets the meat so moist. “It’s my secret recipe,” he says, but we know the truth.

I go back to my apartment after my shift at the cafeteria. I live alone in a crumbling tenement building. I just moved in, but I’m looking for a better place already. The porch in front of my apartment is rotten; I have to be careful where I step so as not to fall through. The railings are broken on some of the porches. A neighbor comments “The lady upstairs, her baby almost fell offa their porch yesterday.”