rails
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spring/summer.13
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UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD, COURTESY OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS
A Legacy
Without realizing it, most of us enjoy the
benefits of creativity in dining-car food
preparation even today. Bisquick, for
example, is a Betty Crocker product that
originated with a Southern Pacific chef
as the Katy, the Pennsylvania and The
Milwaukee Road, dining cars innovated
practices common today in upscale chain
restaurants and fast-food outlets alike:
standards of preparation and service,
consistent food appearance and the use
of quality ingredients to reduce waste.
It’s also said that our penchant for taking
short, quick meals originated with din-
ing cars, where the need to feed several
hundred people at breakfast, lunch and
dinner necessitated prompt turnover at
the table.
So to those of you who place signs
along rail-trails calling attention to
notable events and features: How about
adding a menu?
Missouri-Kansas-Texas
Railroad
Katy Kornettes
Makes 48 cakes
32
oz. sweetened condensed milk
1
lb. white cornmeal
4
oz. butter, softened
1
tbsp. sugar
1
tsp. salt
Lightly grease two large cookie sheets and set
aside. Preheat oven to 400°F. Bring milk to a
boil in a 2-quart saucepan, then pour it into
a large mixing bowl. Stirring constantly, add
cornmeal, butter, sugar and salt. Mix well. Let
stand 5 minutes. Using a pastry bag or table-
spoon, drop silver-dollar sized balls onto cookie
sheets. Allow to cool to room temperature,
approximately 15 minutes. Place in oven and
bake until cooked through, about 20 minutes.
Serve warm.
e
The Steward,
shown here in the 48-seat
dining room of the Union Pacific’s streamlined
St. Louis-Salt Lake City
City of St. Louis
,
seated
guests, presented and explained the menu, and
oversaw the work of the ten-member crew.
who concocted a recipe to enable him to
serve fresh hot biscuits on short notice.
If you use slices from a square loaf of
bread to make sandwiches, you prob-
ably call it “sandwich bread.” But bak-
ers know it as a “Pullman loaf ” because
the Pullman Company used bread pans
with lids. Three Pullman loaves fit in the
same space as two loaves with crowns, an
important consideration in a dining car
where space is at a premium.
Pressed sawdust logs, sold today under
such names as Duraflame and Pres-to-
Logs, were developed by Weyerhauser
in 1935 and tested by the Union Pacific
Railroad. They proved vital to trains that
passed through the Rocky Mountains
in winter, running the risk of becom-
ing snowbound. The logs burn hot and
smokeless and leave little residue, making
them invaluable to dining car chefs.
And think about the design of apart-
ment kitchens. A long, narrow kitchen
with lots of equipment but little counter
space was known to the architects who
first designed high-rise apartment build-
ings in the 1920s as a “Pullman kitchen.”
Also, given the far-flung operation of
dining cars on Class I railroads such
d
The Great Northern Railway’s Seattle-
Vancouver,
British Columbia, International
Limited featured decor highlighting the Pacific
Northwest, including flying Canada geese over
the light panels and carved myrtle wood
bas-reliefs in the cafe car.