consider the Hobart 1612, a 1959 model pretty close to the platonic ideal of the genre:
- Massive cast base. Look at that thing. Is that iron or aluminum? It doesnβt matter. Youβre never going to move it. Not accidentally.
- Protected slides. What does that meat log tray ride on? Who knows, itβs under the massive lump of metal on the right. Not ham grease.
- Design elements which are highly attractive and highly functional. All the corrugated parts serve to keep the food in place and feeding smoothly as you turn it into a stack of smaller food.
- Big knob. What do the numbers mean? Nobody knows, nobody cares. Youβre gonna guesstimate and eat the first couple of slices to get it dialed in anyway. Or give them to the customer waiting at the counter. Or their dog.
- Safety. This machine from hell is a mandoline crossbred with a table saw, but with way more energy in the blade than any table saw and a bigger maw than any mandoline. You see what it does to ham and cheese without even noticing? This beast craves fingertips. But nobody wants to have to deal with that. Keep your hands where you can see them, on the conveniently placed handles maybe, and theyβll be where the blade canβt.
- Big blade go vrrrrrrwhhnnnnnnnnnnnnn
- Damn that thing is pretty though. These machines got frozen for a while in a 50s industrial aesthetic with smooth lines but no nonsense.
- Have you ever heard one of these in operation? Up close? Awe-inspiring.
I've spent a fair amount of time working in various commercial kitchens, some for fast food, some restaurant, some cafeteria work, each job had some old gear. These motherfuckers are my favorite.
Every Hobart brand commercial kitchen appliance I have ever used has been a solidly-built beast of metal and screaming antique grease. I've never heard of anyone maintaining or repairing these guys. They just always work. The three gallon floor stand mixer? They bolted it to the floor in 1969 when they built the school, and it's still making a fucking ton of food every week. Slicer? To date that thing has claimed no less than five entire human fingertips, and it hasn't apologized yet. I've seen the stand mixer eat a goddamn wooden spoon that slipped in there, CHUNK and splinters, fuck you! Didn't even fucking slow down. A spoon the tensile equivalent of a child's ulna, just obliterated.
Now, the garbage disposal in the sink was designed for that shit. I had the utmost respect for it. It wasn't in a normal sink, oh no, it was in an open, flat sink, with a shallow bowl at one end, custom made and welded in, with a open pipe faucet flooding the surface of the sink constantly, preceding the automatic-pull dish machine. Go'n an' picture that for a second. A shallow, flooded dish with a chainsaw pit in it, with perforated slabs being forcibly drawn over top of it, often containing long, potentially sharp metal objects, and human hands. All of this was being drawn into the machine that, at proper functioning temperature, was actively spraying a 3'x3' cube with 200f water, the blast of which was being held at bay by hefty tarpaulin curtains. Yeah! A Fucking Heat Sani Auto! In an elementary school! With a chainsaw death pit it is capable of drawing knives into!
Did I mention that this was at the tray intake window, in an elementary school?
You know how, as a kid, you would get in line with your classmates, file through line with an empty tray, say "eww" at the broccoli an old woman smushed onto the tray, then take your little lunch tray out and eat your lunch, talk, trade snacks, then go drop your tray off at a window? That's the window. This is all taking place within five imperial feet of HUMAN CHILDREN.
Nothing ever happened, actually.
That building is in terrible condition, and it's going to be a headline soon if the school board keeps their heads up they asses, but that's another story.
Teal deer; Hobart make good kitchen death machine.
