Glossary
Cafeteria Cook Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential cafeteria cook terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key cafeteria cook vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in cafeteria cook training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Batch cooking
- Cooking in stages.
- Cross-contamination
- Spreading germs between foods.
- FIFO
- First in, first out.
- Food handler card
- Basic food safety certificate.
- HACCP
- Food safety plan.
- NSLP
- National School Lunch Program.
- Portion control
- Correct serving size.
- Production record
- Daily cooking log.
- Sanitizer
- Chemical that kills germs.
- Standardized recipe
- Tested recipe for consistent results.
- Steam table
- Hot holding line.
- Temperature danger zone
- 41°F to 135°F.
- Therapeutic diet
- Medical diet.
- Tray line
- Hospital meal assembly.
- Yield
- Servings a recipe makes.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Cafeteria Cook practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Cafeteria Cook training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.