Hygiene, vegetables and kitchen equipment

Primary processing of vegetables follows this order: sorting → washing → peeling → washing again → cutting. In sorting, vegetables are separated by quality, size and amount; washing removes soil and sand; peeling takes off the outer skin with a special or ordinary knife and a grater; then they are washed again in running cold water. Cutting methods are basic (strips, elongated rectangles, cubes, slices, thin leaf slices) and complex (spiral, ball, star, crinkle-cut); basic ones are for dishes and salads, complex ones for decoration. For example, carrot is cut in strips for salad and plov, potato in cubes for soup. For a salad, vegetables are washed, cut, mixed, seasoned with salt and oil/sour cream/yoghurt, put in a dish, garnished with herbs and served. A pupil uses a sharp knife only under the teacher’s supervision, on a board, with fingers curled inward; the cutting is first shown by an adult.