A Review of Cooking of Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) Served in Large-Scale Food-Service Systems, Including Industrial Pre-Treatments

Abstract

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) often constitute a meal’s main carbohydrate source. When consumed outside the home, dishes are often prepared in large-scale food service systems, like school canteens and hospitals. To manage the logistics of serving the required quantities of potatoes, raw tubers must be prepared by washing, industrial peeling, preservative actions, and packaging to stand transportation and storage before cooking. There are several steps of pre-treatment, packaging, transportation, and cooking techniques that differ from traditional preparation at home, and each of these steps— or more likely a combination of several steps— might contribute to reduced quality in terms of enzymatic discoloration, microbiological failure, and subsurface hardening. In this review, the effect of each of these steps on the potato tuber; from industrial peeling to steam-cooking in the large-scale food service system, has been studied to understand where the most significant quality changes occur, and to understand the combined impact of different actions.