News
It’s a hard knock life
View(s):When you think of a kitchen in a large organisation or factory, specific images spring to mind. Mass kitchens serve hundreds, even thousands of people everyday. But, what comes to your mind when you think of a mass kitchen, inside a prison?
Text and pix by Reka Tharangani Fonseka
The Welikada Prison Kitchen is situated along an area of about 20 perches near the prison’s main gate. It also happens to be near the prison’s gallows, which have not been used since the last execution in 1976. About 200 prisoners work here as part of the ‘kitchen party’ on a daily basis.
There are no open fires here. Cooking is done on steamers operated by boiler air. There are eight massive cauldrons. Up to 50kg of food can be cooked in each one. About 1,000kg of food is cooked each day to feed Welikada’s population.
The kitchen party is divided into several sections, all of which have their designated tasks, such as washing and cutting vegetables, cooking rice and cutting fish and meat. Due to security considerations, the knives used to cut vegetables do not have any sharp edges. Prison officers say they can hardly be classified as knives, being no more than blunted blades. The only sharp knife in the entire kitchen is the one used to cut fish and meat.
Once the cooking is done, the food is placed in containers and taken to the different wards within the prison. All the work in the kitchen, and the distribution of meals are done by prison inmates on the kitchen party that day.
Prison authorities say the kitchen operations and the food prepared here adheres to the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the ‘Nelson Mandela Rules,’ in honour of the late South African President who spent 27 years as a prison inmate.
