3. General Evaluation Procedures. The human senses or sensory perception have
nutritional aspects when evaluating food items and can be applied in many different
ways. When evaluating food products, remember to have a checklist handy to aid you.
Begin your evaluation by first looking at the product.
a. Check food for structure. Does the item look appealing? For example, bread
should not have holes or tunnels. Check food for volume and texture. Then ask yourself,
"Does this look like something I would eat?"
b. Next, smell the product using one of the smelling techniques. Does the product
smell as it should?
c. Check food for taste. You should be able to recognize foreign, burned, or
scorched taste, and to identify too much flavoring or seasoning. Then, taste it. What
flavors should this product have?
d. Many times you will need to roll the product around in your mouth to absorb the
full flavor. Remember that the tongue has over 9,000 taste buds, and the distribution of
the taste buds over the tongue is uneven.
e. Last, but not least, apply your senses of touch and sound. Touch plays a big role
in odor and flavor identification. The entire mouth cavity and lower nasal cavity are
affected by touch. You will not use sound as frequently as the other senses, but sound can
tell you if you are cooking with the correct temperature.
f. Using all five of your senses will ensure greater accuracy when evaluating food
products. There are times when you will not need to use all five. However, the more
senses you use the better.
4. Evaluation of Preparation Procedures. When conducting the actual evaluation of the
food produced, you want to determine whether the food is prepared according to the
recipe cards. These are general procedures on preparing different kinds of food products.
Use this information to guide you when performing the actual evaluation. Base your
evaluation on the recipe card procedures required for preparing the food, and observe the
cook.
a.
Ensure safety precautions are followed:
(1) Hot pads used for handling hot items.
(2) Cooking utensils spaced on cooking surfaces.
(3) Spills cleaned up immediately.
(4) Food supplies handled safely.
QM 6322
7-5
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