Does Applebees Microwave everything?

[zstyles]

A friend of mine was telling me about this,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/books/tracie-mcmillan-writes-the-american-way-of-eating.html?_r=0

"At Applebee's, almost no actual cooking is done: premade food in plastic baggies is heated in microwaves and dumped onto plates. Ms. McMillan deplores this practice while also finding it fascinating. "I watch an endless assembly line," she writes, "a large-scale mash-up that hits the sweet spot between McDonald's and Sandra Lee's 'Semi-Homemade Cooking.' "

I guess I had no idea....I never really eat there but when I did I guess they covered it up pretty well, or perhaps my standards were alot less than they are now.

[carltonplace]

I'd bet they have a fryer. But I don't eat at Applebee's and I eschew chains.

[sgrizzle]

Yummy

[Teatownclown]

I don't know about what they do in house at Applebees, but if you saw the process the plant in Owasso (and I am certain other processors) they get their meat from and what they do to prepare their meats (along with many many other franchise food companies) for sale you would never order a meat dish again when eating out. It's all recomposed. Do not forget, the cattle and the poultry business has the same goal as most companies to deliver inexpensive high volume products. This means the feed they use is modified to increase yield, lower spoilage, and protect their heard through chemicals and re-designing their god given genes. You eat that? Global warming could be slowed down were we all to understand the effects of emissions.

The purely pragmatic reasons to eat less meat (and animal products in general) are abundant. And while I've addressed them before, I'll continue until the floods come to Manhattan. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/we-could-be-heroes/

Looks like that day is here!

And microwave just extracts everything good you need from food.

[TURobY]

It's fairly standard practice; not just at Applebees. If you truly think about how long it would take to prepare your meal and the volume of business going on at the chain, it only makes sense to have parts of the meal already prepared and heated when you order it. That way, they only have to concentrate on cooking certain components of the meal as opposed to the entire thing.

[Townsend]

It's fairly standard practice; not just at Applebees. If you truly think about how long it would take to prepare your meal and the volume of business going on at the chain, it only makes sense to have parts of the meal already prepared and heated when you order it. That way, they only have to concentrate on cooking certain components of the meal as opposed to the entire thing.

It's been many years but we very rarely used the microwave for heating anything.

We had many things prepped but we sauteed, grilled, and fried like mad folk in order to get meals out in an acceptable time.  I never worked for a chain though.

[Teatownclown]

as we speak, Atlantic City's Applebees